Bangkok Revisited

It was our fourth time in Bangkok and we decided to spend our time getting to know some of the areas we’ve previously neglected. We checked into a hotel in China Town, right next door to the hotel we stayed in on our very first visit.

We had three objectives for our two night stopover in the capital: visit the embassy for additional pages to be added to my full passport; visit the Grand Palace; and explore China Town.

As it turns out, British citizens aren’t entitled to extra pages and I’ll have to apply for a new passport instead. So that was crossed off the list easily.

Next was the Grand Palace, Bangkok’s biggest tourist attraction. For an extortionate ticket price of 500Baht (£10!) you get access to the Palace grounds (you unfortunately can’t go inside), the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, the textiles museum and an exhibition of old coins. We passed on the latter two subsidiary attractions; I feel they’re added on to the ticket to justify the high price. To put that price into context, Bangkok’s Palace is more expensive than the Taj Mahal (£8), the Great Wall of China (£4) and pretty much any other attraction in Thailand. It was even more than our hotel room.

We went to the Palace on our first trip to Thailand but were put off by the huge crowds and didn’t go inside. This time round the crowds were equally intimidating but we decided to bite the bullet and see what all the fuss is about. To cut a long story short, it was overcrowded, over priced and boring.

First of all, it wasn’t enough that I was wearing long trousers and had a shawl wrapped around my upper body. Ric wasn’t allowed to cover his exposed legs with a sarong because ‘they’re for ladies only’. In a country famous for its gender ambiguity, Ric was forbidden to wear a sarong. We queued to hire the Palace-issued appropriate clothing but didn’t have enough money for the deposit (it was 200Baht/£4 per item). The end result was that I had to wear the sarong, Ric had to wear my trousers and I had to cover my top half with a hideous polyester shirt that made me look like a dinner lady from the 70’s. We entered the Grand Palace looking and feeling ridiculous.

Unstylish, even by our standards.

We entered the complex, arriving first at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and the heavens opened. Every available sheltered space was suddenly packed with Asian tourists wearing matching tour group caps and badges, the occasional guide waving a flag and shouting to be heard above the crowd. It was hectic, cramped and annoying. I was grateful to be a head and shoulders taller than most of the other visitors as I at least had some breathing space. As in independent traveller I can’t think of anything worse than following 40 other people around all day, piling in and out of a tour bus and following a strict itinerary. I often wonder if the opposite is true; do these Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese busloads look at us and mock us with a our oversized backpacks, guide books and sweaty brows? We pushed our way through the coloured hats to peek inside at the sacred statue of the Emerald Buddha. The statue was discovered in 1434 and was originally covered in plaster. It was mistakenly named the Emerald Buddha by an abbot who noticed the plaster was flaking off to reveal a green stone. It is in fact made of jade.

Around the jade/Emerald Buddha there are many ornately decorated chedis (stupas), gold gilded paintings, carvings, and sculptures of elephants and mythical creatures. This was the most interesting part of the Palace.

Crowd outside the Emerald Buddha Temple.

The actual Royal Residence and throne halls are not spectacular, however; we did see the king in a totally random unrelated incident…

The morning we arrived in Bangkok we were wandering the streets in the early morning heat, tired from the overnight train, waiting to check into our hotel at midday. As we walked around the neighbourhood, half in a daze, we were stopped on a street corner by a soldier. He told us only to stop, we no explanation, and shouted at us when we attempted to continue our stroll. More people arrived and they too had to stop, as did all traffic. As the crowd grew the bystanders motioned for us to stand with our arms by our sides and the soldiers insisted we remove our sunglasses. Then somebody whispered “his highness, his highness”.  A few moments later we glimpsed a balding King Bhumibol Adulyadej speed past in a shiny cream BMW, surrounded by an impressive police convoy.

Last on our concise to-do list was China Town, an endlessly interesting and delicious area of Bangkok. Back in June we visited the gold Buddha at Wat Traimit and popped into China Town for some cheap eats at the night market; after sampling just a tiny portion of the food on offer we knew we had to go back and do some serious eating.  

By day China Town is a bustling market place where you can buy just about anything; from spectacles to sex toys, sunglasses to illegal weapons, iphone speakers to traditional Chinese medicine. The Thieves Market was once the place to go to buy back your possessions that had been stolen on the streets on Bangkok. Today, the sale of stolen goods is frowned upon and the Thieves Market is more what Ric and I call a Shit You (Don't) Need Shop. We love SYDN shops and have enjoyed browsing them around the world. All you need is a sheet of material or a piece of cardboard. You go to that drawer in the house where the whole family dumps the things that have no proper place. Every home has this drawer: batteries, celotape, odd stamps, a screwdriver, a packet of tissues, an old lipstick... random items. Then you arrange them in no particular order, on a sheet, on the floor. Voila, you have a SYDN shop. They're great places to browse and we usually end up buying something that we really don't need but might need, some day.

Monk browsing the SYDN shops; perhaps he'll impulse buy a second-hand saw along with that antique book of Buddhist chants?

In the evening China Town's streets are jammed with steaming food stalls: dim sum, noodle dishes, home-made ice cream, fruit, sea food, fried vegetables, and some more questionable dishes such as shark fin and birds nest soup.

Um, no thanks.

This lady has a huge bowl of our new favourite Thai dish, Khao Kha Moo, ham shank stew. Locals and tourists alike sit at a few plastic tables and stools to eat the melt-in-your-mouth pork, served in a rich soy gravy, with rice and chickpeas. 

Khao Kha Moo

Any other China Town specialty is peking duck and hoi sin gravy. We discovered a corner cafe right near our hotel that served this dish with rice for just 60Baht (£1.20) and we ate there at everyday. The sweetness of the sauce, the saltiness of the skin and the subtle flavors of the meat... I'm drooling just thinking about it. 

Peking duck, China Town.

I love China Town, it has so much character, so many hidden gems, so much food! We enjoyed many an afternoon wandering its narrow markets, its bright shiny shops and its endless food stalls. This was the highlight of our stay in Bangkok. China Town is much less touristy than the Khao San Road area and I'd definitely stay there again. 

Temple squeezed into a row of shops.

How To Get To...
The Grand Palace: The easiest way to get there is on one the river taxis; they're cheap fast and the views along the river are endlessly interesting. Just don't join one of the annoying tour groups!
We Stayed At...
S.K Boutique Hotel: $20/£12 for the cheapest room. Nicely decorated and great location but overpriced really. 

Eating and Walking in Hanoi

 After falling very much in love with Vietnam's biggest city, Saigon, I didn't expect to be too impressed by the country's smaller capital, Hanoi. But this incredible country surprised me yet again. 

Walking through Hanoi is a real pleasure. One minute you're on a wide, tree-lined boulevard admiring elegant five star hotels and the colonial Opera House, the next you're dodging motorbikes on the cramped, winding streets of the Old Quarter where the sunlight is obscured by a mesh of wires and cables connecting narrow, crumbling houses. A short walk north and you find yourself on the edge of a massive lake, sipping a beer on a plastic stool on the pavement. It's a great and interesting place.

Typical house in the Old Quarter.

Old meets new in Hanoi's Old Quarter.

This brave electrician is sitting on the wires to work, they are supporting his entire weight!

We spent our whole time in Hanoi walking, ignoring the protests of my poor blistered feet. We walked around Hoan Kiem Lake, dodging the enthusiastic students that hang around pestering tourists to practice English with them, and popped into Ngoc Son Temple where old men play Chinese checkers on the pagoda overlooking the lake.

Hoan Kiem Lake with Ngoc Son Temple on the right.

We walked around and around the shop lined streets of the old town, where you can buy everything from tomb stones to dragon masks to hiking gear. 

We wandered around Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum Complex and visited his house and gardens. The complex is the only part of the city where traffic is prohibited and hence becomes overrun with power walkers and families in the early evening. We would have entered the mausoleum to catch a glance at Uncle Ho himself, who lies there embalmed in a glass box most of the year, but he's away in Russia on his annual holiday, where scientists work to preserve the 45 year old corpse. The area is surrounded by guards who impose a strict and pointless one way system, sending us on long detours for the sole purpose of their own amusement.

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum

Hanoi's Presidential Palace. Ho Chi Minh opted to live in a modest wooden stilt house nearby rather than in the opulent palace.

We walked the edges of the citadel, which isn't at all interesting, and visited three museums. The Military Museum, opposite Lenin Park, had a good collection of aircraft, tanks and canons from Vietnam's numerous struggles. The National History and the Revolutionary Museum weren't as interesting; there weren't any boards to offer an explanation of the history and instead visitors are left to piece together information from the endless displays of photographs. I think we left the museum with a more muddled up understanding of the history than when we entered. One thing all the museums had in common was their amusingly biased captions describing the 'puppet government', 'French colonial spies', and 'fascist bandits'.

Military Museum.

For two days during our stay we couchsurfed with a couple who lived in Tay Ho, the West Lake area that seems to be popular with expats. They took us to the Communist Restaurant, a place made to resemble life after the war, when people ate state issued food rations. On the inside the restaurant has an old cozy atmosphere, with rusting bikes and cracks jugs decorating the walls. We piled into a snug booth and our hosts ordered us a feast of different foods that were commonly eaten during the early communist period. We were even given food stamps instead of a receipt. The food was some of the best food we've eaten during our six weeks in Vietnam: fried pumpkin, sweet potato leaves, meaty spring rolls, stewed pork in soy sauce, tomato and chili fried tofu... it was delicious. 

Staying up in Tay Ho gave us the opportunity to explore West Lake and Truc Bach Lake, where we probably wouldn't have ventured had we stayed in the tourist area. We walked the whole length of the lake one evening in search of my friend and former editorial boss Colette, who lives here now. We spent an evening drinking beers and eating delicious local delicacies by the lake and got fully clued up about life teaching in Vietnam, which I must admit sounds very appealing. 

On the subject of food I can confidently say that Hanoi has some of the best food in the country. It helped that we had our couch hosts and Colette to guide us towards the local dishes that we might have otherwise missed, but we were in food heaven for a whole four days. Some of our favourites were:

Pho Chien Phong; sliced beef, onions and greens in a meaty gravy, eaten with fried bread.

Pho Cuon; minced beef and fragrant herbs rolled in glutinous rice paper, dipped into savoury apple soup.

Bun Cha; barbecued pork, rice noodles, mixed greens and the apple soup.

Nem; springrolls. We've had srpingrolls all over Vietnam and none have compared to the ones we've eaten in Hanoi. Stuffed with minced pork and vermicelli noodles, served with rice noodles and, you guessed it, apple soup for dipping.

Mixed herbs (incl. corriander, mint, anise basil, chili leaf, lettuce), white rice noodles, apple soup, bbq pork, springrolls.

We visited Hoa Lo Prison, where the French imprisoned and tortured Vietnamese revolutionaries. It's now a museum. I was again amused by the amount of propaganda in there. A small part of the prison is dedicated to the American War and a video shows American prisoners grinning like fools and having a wonderful time playing chess in the prison, which was by then controlled by the North Vietnamese. The subtitles explain how lucky the soldiers were to be captured by the Vietnamese, such a kind and humane bunch, and even suggests the prisoners were given presents from the guards upon there release. I'm no historian but that seems unlikely.

For a quiet break away from the chaos of the city we visited the Temple of Literature, a Confucianism Center and historic place where scholars would study before being tested by the king. The temple is also the site of Vietnam's first university, which was destroyed in the war. The flower-filled gardens, pond and ornate courtyards provided us with a quiet place to rest our weary feet after a sweaty day walking around the city.

Court yard in the Temple of Literature.

To top it off I managed to get a filling done in Hanoi for just $7.50/£4.50, not a bad saving considering the same dental work would have cost me $100/£60 in the UK!

How To Get To...

The city sights: Walk. Or be sensible and get a cyclo, moto or traditional taxi.

We Stayed At...

We actually stayed at two different hotels and spent two night couchsurfing.

Hanoi Cental Hotel: $15/£9 small but above average room located right in the center of the Old Quarter.

Fantasea Hotel: $12/£8.20 small but decent room located on the west edge of the Old Quarter.

Cambodia: Random Facts, Thoughts and Observations

People

Cambodian people are by far and wide some of the loveliest people I have ever met, anywhere in the world. From tiny children to elderly couples, everyone wants to greet us and welcome us to Cambodia. Teenagers wave and shout hello as the drive past on their scooters, little children pause their games to grin at us and say hello. From our first impression at Koh Kong and Sihanoukville where we felt everybody was out to con or rob us, our opinion of the Khmer people has changed entirely. They are such a warm, friendly lot. It’s amazing when you think about all they’ve been through. The Cambodians we've met have been very open with us about their experiences during the Khmer Rouge period; they've shared their stories with us of the relatives they lost, or how they managed to escape. We've been astounded by how gentle and loving the people are, when they could so easily be bitter with resentment and grief.

Food 

Khmer food isn’t as good as Thai food, but it’s nice: rice, noodles, soups and curries. Some of the more exotic delicacies we’ve come across include: fried snake, embryo egg (boiled with a partially developed chicken inside), fried frog and ice cream baguettes. The less touristy places always provide you with a pot a jasmine tea and a glass of ice – for free.

Money 

There’s a two tiered pricing system in Cambodia which means tourists pay a premium. Restaurants often have two menus, one in Khmer and one in English, the English prices twice as high as the Khmer prices. The same goes for bus tickets, hotel rates and the rest. There are no coins in Cambodia. Dollars are used down to the one dollar bill, any smaller change is given in riel.

Post

There is no real postal service in Cambodia, mail is delivered by the intercity buses in a complicated web of drop-offs and pick-ups. People wait with their parcels along the main roads where the buses pass, they flag down a bus going to their desired destination and for a small fee the bus driver will drop off their package along the roadside further down the way, where the recipient is waiting. If the recipient is unaware, the package will be dropped off at the local post office, or with a helpful villager who hopefully won’t steal the goods! We discovered this after leaving our homestay in Lvea village, when we realised it would be near impossible to keep in touch with our kind host, Wanah. The post is also the reason that any journey in Cambodia takes a hell of a lot longer than it should. For example, these deliveries are the reason why it took us over five hours to cover the 170km from Phnom Penh to Kampot.

Clothes

Cambodian women are crazy about pyjamas. Brightly coloured, matching two pieces pyjama sets are the norm on the street throughout Cambodia (although less so in Phnom Penh.) It’s as if somebody imported pyjamas for the first time but never passed on the message that elsewhere they’re worn for bed. Waitresses, chefs, shopkeepers and school children go about their business in their pyjamas. I even saw one lady wearing a dressing gown as a coat. Strangely, the men don’t seem to share this love of pyjamas, maybe they know the truth about them being made for bedtime and are having a secret laugh at the women?!

The Patriarchy 

Which brings me on to…sexism! Despite Cambodians being so friendly and polite, I have become invisible again here. It’s not as bad as India, and I’m sure solo female travellers wouldn’t notice it, but walking down the street with Ric I am invisible to vendors, hawkers and tuk-tuk drivers. I should consider myself lucky to not get “tuk-tuk sir?” shouted at me every two minutes, but every now and then I’d like to be offered. 

Kep Crabs

Kep is a small coastal town half way between Kampot and the Vietnam boarder. It was once a prosperous place full of mansions and grandeur, frequented by rich French expatriates. Now, many of those mansions lie derelict and abandoned, and local people have reclaimed the land, setting up shanty houses in the grounds or converting the shells of the buildings into make shift shelters.

Abandoned overgrown mansion, Kep. 

Kep is famous for its crab market, where you can eat some of the cheapest, freshest crab in Cambodia. At the market, women dressed in rain coats and big hats wade out into the ocean to collect submerged woven baskets full of newly caught crabs. We picked out our crabs, still live, and the lady boiled them in front of us on a wood burning stove. A couple of minutes later we (and by ‘we’ I mean Ric) were eating crabs and homemade chilli sauce next to the ocean. Can’t get much fresher than that.

Catching crabs.

Cooking crabs.

Eating crab.

Kep crab market, all sorts of barbecued fish and seafood are available.

From our guest house (Rega Guest House) we hiked uphill towards the National Park. On the way we discovered Jasmine Valley Eco Village, an abandoned resort set in the jungle, high above the town. Once one of Kep’s most renowned resorts, Jasmine Valley is now a ghost town. There’s still toilet paper in the tree house suites and books still stand on the shelves in the library, their pages curling in the damp. It has only been abandoned for six weeks, since the owner ran up too many debts and fled the country, and it really felt like everyone had just disappeared. The jungle is slowly taking over the resort, covering the foot paths and taking over the restaurant. The swimming pool is overflowing from the heavy rains and fish swim in the murky water. From the top of the resort there was a wonderful view of the ocean. Although we were tempted to stay and claim the place as our own, we carried on up a steep incline and joined the National Park road, which winds around a mountain affording some good views out to Kampot and the area around Kep. It was a pleasant shady walk and we spotted a few monkeys along the way.

Deserted tree house at Jasmine Valley Eco Village.

Overflowing pool at Jasmine Valley.

View out to Kampot, from Kep National Park.

Kep has a good beach, small but with fine white sand. After three days of heavy rain we were finally able to top up our tans and enjoy the sun.

Kep beach.

We’re enjoying our last few nights in Cambodia before our visas expire on 8^th August and we cross over into Vietnam. We’ll be sad to leave.

What's on the Menu, China?

A selection of interesting dishes we found in China...

Our First Week in Korea

After travelling for over 30 hours, with no sleep, we arrived at Incheon airport and met our agent, Doyle, who told us ‘Korean people very hurry up’ – I think he was hinting at us to get a move on. Doyle didn’t speak very much English and quite clearly just wanted to get rid of us and get his commission.

All we wanted to do was to lie down, anywhere, and sleep. But we had to go straight to the school and meet people. Then finally we were shown to our apartment.

Our New Home

Our apartment is so much nicer than either of us had expected. It’s much bigger too. We’ve turned the living room into a bedroom-come-living room as it’s the only room with air conditioning, and we’ve even made a “chaise-bed” out of our spare bed. We’re are using the little bedroom as a walk-in wardrobe. There’s plenty of room for the two of us. I love it!

When people warned us about getting culture shock when we arrived here I didn’t expect it to happen to me, I’ve lived abroad before, I’ve travelled loads; but it really is a whole different world here.

Cultural Differences

• If you go into a building, you have to take your shoes off. This means in restaurants everyone is barefoot, and at work we teach wearing our slippers.
• In restaurants you sit on the floor.
• There’s a certain way to pour a drink, and a certain way to receive a drink. You cannot pour yourself a drink.
• When somebody gives you something you have to accept it with two hands. Where you put your hands is determined by how well you know the person and how polite you wish to be.
• Eating with you hands is social suicide. Eating with a knife is unheard of. For the first three days I was very hungry because I couldn’t operate a pair of chopsticks. I’m getting better though.
• Flagging a taxi as we would in England is rude, instead you have to make a kind of camp flappy hand gesture. You never, ever, get in or out of a taxi on the driver’s side.
• You bow to greet people.

The first week has been non-stop. We went out every night: meal with the boss, meal with all the other teachers, drinks with the other teachers, a meal just the two of us… and I’ve been observing all week at school so I didn’t even get chance to recover from my jet lag until weekend.

Me and Ric getting into the spirit

And now is my first day of teaching!!! Wish me luck!

French Ideology

French people have some really funny ideas about the world! Here are a few examples gained from conversations with real French people....

BSE
France's version: During the BSE epidemic in the 90's Margaret Thatcher intentionally sent mad cows over to France because she didn't like French people. France boycotted British meat. In retaliation to this England started embargo over France.
The Truth: Margaret Thatcher wasn't even in office when the epidemic broke out. No body intentionally tried to wipe out the French using infected cows. France did boycotte English beef. There has never been an embargo between England and France.

French Kissing
France's version: French people truly believe that only French people kiss with tongues. No joke. Any French man you meet will expect you to be amazed and in awe when he kisses you and uses his tongue, as if you've never experienced such sensual bliss before.
The Truth: Kissing with tongues is international, get over yourself France.

WW2
France's version: America played a bigger role in liberating France from German occupation than England did. I asked one English hating French lady why she likes American's and not Brits and this was her explanation. The USA helped us in the war and Britain didn't. Erm...
The Truth: The USA joined the war in December 1941 (two years after the start of the war) and only because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbour. England joined the war in September 1939 - right at the start!

Munch
France's version: French food is the best food in the world. English food is disgusting and Americans only eat cheese burgers.
The Truth: Dear France, you have great bakeries, an unnecessary number of cheeses and some very good food. However, you also eat frogs, snails and horses. You're too patriotic to your own cuisine (chinese, indian, thai food etc is good, give it a chance), I know that the concept of jelly gives you nightmares but its fruity and it wobbles, and yes I know some Americans are fat, but they have some good grub too, like Thanks Giving Dinner which I was lucky enough to sample recently!

Party Time
France's version: French people know how to party.
The Truth: French people's idea of partying is having a third glass of wine at the dinner table. French clubs are all the same, they all have a pretentious air to them, nobody dances before 2am, everybody drinks over priced mixers. The music is tame sub-standard house music with the odd bit of French rap thrown over the top. Until you've passed out in the toilets of a dirty sweaty indie club in Manchester where everybody drinks cheap beer and the dance floor is so crammed you can barely breath... don't try and tell me you're a 'crazy party animal' because I will drink you under the table mon ami.