Madame Sou Ny was a great help arranging a car, guide and accommodation in Phnom Phen, but best of all was getting seat # 3 and 4 on the express boat across lake Tonle Sap (5 hours US$23 each). So, at 6am, we were picked up and driven at breakneck speed to the boat. Organised chaos ensued but eventually we got aboard the correct Rambo tours boat. There was a little man holding up a sign 'WOOD, Waun' waiting for us at the quay in Phnom Phen. The grotty chinese hotel (Tai Seng) wasn't worth the US$20 arranged, but we can't be lucky all the time. Ate the plate du jour in the rain at the Lyon D'Or on the Mekong river bank. Got ripped off buying bus tickets to Saigon by a pretty girl in a tour agency who, while smiling sweetly, charged me US$10 for a $6 ticket. Sure enough the van arrived at 6.15 am, delivered us to Capitol Tours office from whence we set off precisely at 7am. Another 'dancing road' for about 7 hours to the Vietnamese border at Moc Bai where we were held up for nearly two hours by some raghead who had difficulty getting through the border. Eventually we were delivered to the Oscar in down town Saigon, ahhhhh!!, hot showers and room service in air conditioning. Woke up at 7.30 to a completely dark room. Had we changed time zones ? Went down to breakfast to find it bright outside. After breakfast we found that the window in our room was boarded up, it backed onto the liftwell and consequently there was no outside source of light into the room. Outside the humidity was ferocious. Three minutes walking made me sweat so much my clothes were wringing wet. Into a taxi to go to the War Museum, unfortunately it was off the edge of the map and the driver couldn't understand me so we ended up a long way from our destination and a long hot walk back. Finally we found a taxi that knew were to go and made it there. For no apparent reason I got all emotional at the photos of the dead soldiers. Next day I found out why the first taxi driver was confused, I had insisted that we go the wrong way up a one-way street. Bought some CD's for AUD$1 each and visited the Reunification Palace. Bought bus tickets to Da Lat (US$5 ea) and walked around down town Saigon, visited the Ben Thanh markets and bought some clothes and fruit (mangosteens, mango and sapodillas) to go with the remains of some dragon fruit we bought in Cambodia. We bought some postcards from a little girl with her hands burnt off. These kids are so stoic, with no hands and only one foot she hopped around the market selling postcards. The only luck she had was her pretty face wasn't scarred. We wished there was more we could do to help. At 7.30 Sunday morning I asked the hotel receptionist to call the bus company as we were supposed to be picked up at 7.15 to be delivered to the bus depot. We must have reminded the bus company, as a taxi arrived a couple of minutes later. A relatively pleasant 6 hours later we arrived in Da Lat. Stayed the first night in the hotel where the bus stopped (US$7) then transferred to Dreams hotel, a place recommended by some Irish girls Rosemary worked with. The lady owner of Dreams, Madam Nguyen, is a gem, in fact all the staff (her son, niece etc.) are brilliant. The place is great value for money (US$9). Wandered around the town, checked out the markets, took photos of the flowers and the fish, booked tickets for a tour around Da Lat (US$7) and, on Saturday, Mui Ne then onto Saigon (US$14 ea). When we first arrived in Da Lat a bloke called Lui fronted us and said he would meet us on Tuesday to arrange a day trip on Wednesday, but he never turned up. So we booked with TM Brothers and it turned out to be a very pleasant day. Visted the chicken village and saw a bunch of dirty ethnics with a guide who was from a Cham village on the coast, and who incidentally almost despised the Vietnamese as lazy, just as the Vietnamese look down on the ethnic minorities. Went to a couple of waterfalls, a silkworm factory etc.etc. all the manufactured delights to keep the tourists interested in, and staying at hotels in Da Lat. It appears pretty quiet at the moment but Dreams continues to be booked out. Word of mouth remains the most powerful form of advertising. After Luyen Nguyen took a bag of food the bus driver (a delicacy in Vietnam, pigs uterus) we had a good discussion about tourism marketing and running a small business in Vietnam. As explained by Idris, most business relationships are built over a long period and are heavily reliant on family ties. Met a bloke selling postcards who spun me a yarn about being a Government official in the South during the war but, on reflection his story didn't ring true and Luyen later confirmed that it has become common to blame laziness on the 'nasty' northerners Wednesday night we finally succumbed to the entreaties of the Mekong and went to his restaurant. Twice a day for three days he has stood at his door begging us to come in. We're glad we did, the food was good and we had the company of a couple of young women. There isn't much nightlife in Da Lat, I've the sneaking suspicion that the plethora of Karioke bars are in fact fronts for brothels, and the majority of customers are Vietnamese not foreign tourists. We spent too long in Da Lat and ran out of things to see and do, in fact we should have cut our whole holiday shorter by one week. Or added another couple of days and gone up to Hoi An which everybody says is lovely. But 'we no complain' the weather there is lovely, even though it threatens to rain every day, it's not really cold. It's strange to see the locals all rugged up every night, they feel the cold much more than we. So we hopped on a bus and went down to the coast of VIETNAM |
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| THE TEMPLES AT ANGKOR It costs US$20 for a day ticket to Angkor but, as we were informed by Madame Sou Ny, one can buy a ticket valid for the next day at 4pm, and still get 2 hours at the temples that afternoon. So we hired a tuk-tuk for half a day (US$6) had delicious lunch in the Bayon restaurant (met some French people and had our photo taken), took a drive along Route 6 to a temple we couldn't enter, a quick look at the Wat, then a lovely evening drive around the 'petite circuit'. After breakfast of baguettes et confiture our driver, the same one that brought us from the border, turned up with Sovann or David (as he wanted to be called), a maths teacher turned guide. Madame had told us it was practically price fixee for the car (US$20) and guide (US$25). As it turned out we had a very pleasant day out and consider the money well spent, even if I couldn't afford the elephant ride to the hill top (but I did buy some bananas and enjoyed feeding both the elephants and the mahouts). |