Cooling Off In The Highlands - Da Lat

At 1,500m above sea level, the cooler climate of Da Lat was a welcome change from the stifling heat and humidity in Ho Chi Min. The city was established in the central highlands of Vietnam at the end of the nineteenth century by the French. Today the French legacy lives on and its colourful wooden buildings would be more at home in the Alps than in the middle of Vietnam. 

'Chalets' of Da Lat.

The city is surrounded by mountains, with a large lake in the middle. It is a favoured holiday spot among the upper class Vietnamese, particularly honeymooners, and the classy lakeside bars and restaurants reflect this. We stopped for coffee at one such bar and were devastated to have to pay two thirds of our room rate for a terrible salty brew. Money doesn't buy quality.

We spent a pleasant three days walking around the city, taking in the many tourist attractions and enjoying the weather, with the temperature in the early twenties it was like a British summer for us. The Vietnamese, however, weren't quite so accustomed to the colder climate and provided us with much amusement in their thick coats, hats and scarves! 

You can take a horse drawn cart around the lake, hire a tandem bicycle, or (as we did) take a swan shaped pedalo out onto the water.

A short walk from the city center are the Da Lat Flower Gardens, a pretty and shadey place to walk around and pass the time. Tour buses full of domestic tourists stop here briefly and we found ourselves stuck having our photos taken with several families who were more interested in us than the flowers.

National flag and a giant teapot shaped bush at Da Lat Flower Gardens.

The train station in Da Lat is the oldest one in the country and now only serves a tourist service which travels 30 minutes out to the village of Trai Lat and then back. Although at first I only agreed to the journey to indulge Ric's love of trains, the scenery we passed on the train was stunning and well worth the $6.50 each. Even better, the temple we stopped to visit at the end of the line is by far one of the most beautiful and unique temples I have seen during my 18 months in Asia. Here are lots of pictures:

Da Lat Station; oldest train station in Vietnam.

A large percent of the countries fruit, vegetables and fresh flowers are grown in Da Lat.

Stunning, colourful Chinese pagoda at Trai Lat.

Made entirely from mosaic porcelin. Can you spot Ric?

Another of Da Lat's gems is the hotel/architectural wonder nicknamed 'Crazy House'. Built by Russian-educated Vietnamese architect Dang Viet Nga, the ever-expanding hotel is designed to show how man must learn to live in harmony with nature, instead of destroying it. Giant concrete tree trunks house several unique grotto-esque rooms, surrounded by vivid purple flowers, fairly light cobwebs and toadstool tables and chairs. Narrow, winding, stair cases lead you around, up and over the structures and cute little hidey-holes provide miniature seating areas for guests. It is an amazing place to spend an afternoon, I could have spent forever exploring the secret nooks and crannies of the Alice In Wonderland meets Gaudi hotel.

The roof of Crazy House has an impressive 360 degree view of the city.

A ten minute bus ride from Da Lat centre is Dalanta Waterfalls, stunning natural waterfalls that have been turned almost into a theme park in the way that only Asia knows how. The bus drops you on the road at the top of the falls where you pay an entrance and then take a self controlled roller coaster down to the first level where you get your first glimpse of the waterfalls. This is pretty much as far as anybody goes as most visitors are on a whistle stop organised tour. 

At the top of Dalanta Falls.

From the busy top level we took a cable car down over the next waterfall, and then a glass lift down even further, where there were no other people. In dry season there are all sorts of activities to do at the falls, from swimming to abseiling. However, as were we visiting in the rainy season is was very quiet and as if on cue, as soon as we reached the bottom of the falls, the heavens opened.

How To Get To...
Dalanta Falls: Take the number 1 bus from the town centre, ask for the falls. 
Cost: Bus = 5,000VND each way. Entrance = 10,000VND. Roller coaster = 45,000VND (round trip). Cable car = 40,000VND (round trip).

We Stayed At...
Hang Nga Hotel opposite the Sinh Tourist Office. $8 (£4.80) got us a large, new, shiny room with a balcony, hot water and a fridge. 

Couchsurfing in Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh Skyline

After nine nights in the small towns of the Mekong Delta it was a relief and somewhat of a culture shock for us to arrive in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). The traffic, the lights and the throngs of tourists took us quite by surprise at first and it took us a few hours to adjust to the hustle and bustle of the city after the slow pace of life in the delta.

The traffic in HCMC moves and flows and pulsates like a living organism. 

We spent two nights in a hotel and then moved a few blocks up the road to stay with our couchsurfing host, Dung Le. I haven't couchsurfed since I met Ric three years ago, but with our tight budget and ambitious travel plans we thought it might be time to find some free accommodation and experience life as the locals live.

Dung ushered us into her kitchen, sat us down and gave us cold water and chilled fruit before showing us to our room. There was no couch this time, we had our own room with a double mattress, pillows, sheets and a fan. Dung lives with her mother, son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and husband in a three story house right in the center of HCMC. Their home is like a rabbit warren with ladders leading up through tiny hatches to reveal whole floors above. She made us feel right at home and cooked for us in the evening. We tried to return the favour by cooking for her and her family one night but I'm not too sure is Grandma enjoyed the garlicky spaghetti and meatballs! We had such a great time couchsurfing with Dung, it really enriched our time in HCMC and hopefully we'll keep in touch.

Dung (right) and her mother and granddaughter.

We visited the botanical gardens and were surprised to find that the ticket price also included the city zoo. The flora and fauna wasn't that special and seeing the animals cooped up in tiny crowded cages isn't really our thing, but the shaded park that houses the zoo made a pleasant break from the heat of the sun. From the zoo we walked for ages to find the ancient Cantonese 'Jade Emperor Pagoda', it's old and crumbling, nestled in between blocks of flats, hotels and shops, which is why it was so hard to find!

Jade Emperor Pagoda

One of the main stops in any tourist's trip to HCMC is the War Remnants Museum, a mainly photographic museum that documents the war crimes committed by the Americans between 1954 and 1975. Galleries include: the international anti-war movement, showing protests  around the world against America's invasion of Vietnam; the legacy of the war crimes, showing how second and third generation Vietnamese people continue to be affected by the DNA-altering chemicals used as weapons of war; photographs from the war taken by war-time photographers. In addition to the photo exhibits there are also displays of bombs, weapons and instruments of torture used by the invading forces, as well as survivour testimonies. I found the displays at the museum very informative and not nearly as one sided as they might have been. The collection of war-time photos was incredibly moving, amazing photography that captured the action on both sides so vividly. I was equally horrified by the images of the dead, mutilated bodies, as I was by the survivours' testimonies. In Vietnam there is no benefits system like there is in England, children born with deformities resulting from the chemical warfare used by the Americans have little to no hope for the future. It is a depressing reality that it is often the poorest and weakest people in society that suffer the most hardship.

On a lighter note, we spent our final day in HCMC at Dam Sen Water Park, the best water park I have ever been to outside of Florida. It was mid-week and the park was quite, we had the slides almost to ourselves, the other visitors (Vietnamese teenagers) preferring to canoodle in the jaccuzzi. We had a fantastic day whizzing down the slides and chilling on rubber rings in the lazy river.

I really loved HCMC; the wide streets lined with tall trees, the shaded parks and squares with their distinctly European feel, the towering narrow buildings, the crazy traffic, the street hawkers selling coffee from a cool box outside Starbucks, the brightly coloured Communist propaganda posters on every corner, the buzzing De Tham tourist area, the power walkers in the central park... The city had a great feel to it. I hope we'll go back there again some day, soon.

Communist propaganda posters, Ho Chi Minh.

How to get to...

Dam Sen Water Park: take the number 11 bus from Nguyen Trai (behind 23/9 park) going South. Get off at Dam Sen bus station and carry on walking for 10 minutes, the water park is on the left. Cost = 5,000

Cu Chi Tunnels (Independent Trip Without Tour)

50km outside of Ho Chi Minh City lies a vast network of underground tunnels that served as a military camp for the Viet Cong soldiers during the war in the 1960s ad 70s. The tunnels cover over 250km and once contained hospitals, kitchens, bunks, store rooms, meeting rooms and munition assembly rooms; everything you need to wage an underground war against invading American soldiers.

The soldiers and villagers of Cu Chi were forced to dig the tunnels and move their lives underground to escape the carpet bombing of their village, on the outskirts of HCMC. The construction of the tunnels is amazing, an architectural wonder. The Viet Cong used hollow bamboo to ventilate the tunnels, concealing the bamboo in termite mounds at the surface to hide it from the Americans; they channeled the smoke from the kitchens to be released far away from the tunnels into an area of dense vegetation so that the smoke would not be seen. The tunnels had booby traps, secret escape hatches, hidden peep holes from which they would shoot the enemy, even trapdoors that once closed would protect them from chemical such as agent orange and napalm.  

The tunnels at Cu Chi have been preserved and the area has become a war memorial where tourists can go into some of the tunnels and see what life might have been like. The tunnels have been widened and made 'safe' for tourists but it was still a struggled to move around inside: hot, dark and claustrophobic, bats flying around your ears. There are displays of the deadly traps used by the Viet Cong, some constructed out of unexploded US bombs, and photographs to show what life was like living underground.

The tour agencies and hotels in HCMC were charging between 100,000 and 130,000 VND ($5-7) for transport to the tunnels and an English speaking guide. We decided we'd do it alone, partly to save money, partly because we like a bit of a challenge. We took the local buses and made it to the tunnels in just under two and a half hours - thank God the local buses were air conditioned! We made a friend on the bus, a young man from Hanoi who was also visiting the tunnels, he acted as our translator for the rest of the day so we didn't even have to pay for an English speaking guide (Vietnamese guides are free.)

The visit started with a very anti-American film from the war, shot in grainy black and white. Then we visited the different tunnels that are open to tourists. Going without a tour group meant we had the place to ourselves, we could spend as long as we liked looking around the tunnels and the exhibits, and it was perfect silence in the jungle where the tunnels are situated.

Ric almost getting stuck in the tiny tunnel entrance.

Tips...

• If you're thinking of going solo to the tunnels, aim to arrive there for about 11am, just as the morning tour groups are leaving, and before the afternoon groups arrive.
• Take mosquito repellent! The area is surrounded by tropical jungle full of hungry mosquitoes.
• You don't need to befriend a local on the bus, English guides are available at the entrance for tourists without a group.

How We Got There...

• From district one, take the north bound number 13 bus from 'Cach Mang Thang Tam' (one of the main streets that runs through the centre) out of the city centre to Cu Chi bus station (the terminus). Cost = 7,000 VND
• Change onto the number 79 bus at the bus station and it will drop you off outside the entrance (look out for signs in English signaling the entrance and tell the bus driver you want the tunnels). Cost = 6,000

Vinh Long and Ben Tre, Vietnam's Mekong Delta

Leaving the luxury of Holiday One Hotel in Can Tho, we took the local bus to Vinh Long, about 45km east. For once, the bus dropped us in the central bus station. Usually we get dropped in the middle of nowhere, without a map, and have to rely on over-charging moto-taxi drivers to take us to the centre (we ask for the market which tends to be the central hub of any town). It made a nice change to be able to walk away from the bus station and find our way around but the downside of walking to your own choice of hotel is that the heat of the day is unforgiving when you're carrying 15kg on your back. 

Eventually we found a hotel, showered and explored the small riverside town. The market was a chaotic hive of activity with stalls spilling out down the narrow lanes surrounding it, selling everything from roast duck heads to rice tacos. To cool down we stopped for an ice coffee at a riverside cafe.

No other country in the world (that I have visited) has such a coffee culture as Vietnam. From road side stalls to expansive elegant gardens, Vietnamese coffee is everywhere. Coffee cafes (selling only coffee, as the name suggests) are everywhere, they outnumber restaurants by at least ten to one and are always packed with people no matter what the time of day. Vietnam is the second biggest exporter of coffee after Brasil and its brew is served strong, sweet and black. It comes in a metal filter, hot, along with a tankard of ice so you can cool it down once it has completely filtered through. If you ask for milk you get a dense slug of condensed milk at the bottom of your glass. The combination of strong coffee and sickly sweet milk is as delicious as it is addictive.

Ca Phe Sua - Vietnamese coffee with sweet milk.

 We booked on to a tour of the river islands and floating market for the next day. Private boats were $25 or a group tour was $6 per person. We went for the cheap option but when it came to get on the boat in the morning we found we were the only people booked on the tour! We got a private tour for the price of a group tour. We set off along the river and stopped at a local market for breakfast where for about 40p we got a meat baguette and some coconut milk rice cakes. 

The produce at the local market couldn't get much fresher!

We crossed the Mekong and passed floating excavators that were removing sand from the bottom of the river. The sand is used for building and even for cooking as a substitute for oil.

Next, we went around Cai Be floating market. It wasn't as busy or as touristy as Cai Rang floating market in Can Tho and felt more authentic. The boats sold wholesale fruit and vegetables which are sold on at the local markets in the surrounding towns.

Boat selling a variety of fruit.

Cai Be floating market, Vinh Long.

After the market we stopped at some factories to learn about the production of local products including coconut caramels, rice paper, rice wine and popped rice crackers. It was interesting to see how no material is wasted; even the flesh from the coconuts and the husks from the rice are dried and burned as fuel. At the factory we saw the rice wine that Ric got drunk on at Mui Nai beach in Ha Tien. It's made from dried sticky rice and bananas and is flavoured with different fruits or snakes! We tried some rice wine with fermented poisonous snakes, yummy! 

Snake wine.

 We made the most of the free samples of all the delicacies, walked through the village and then boarded our boat once again for a relaxing cruise through the canals to a river island where we stopped to have lunch at a homestay set in tropical gardens and fruit orchards.

Ric enjoying the boat trip.

 The people at the homestay dropped us off at the local bus stop and we caught a local bus to the next town in the delta, Ben Tre.

Arriving in Ben Tre was a little bit more complicated than our arrival in Vinh Long. The bus took us to an intercity bus station in the middle of nowhere, they must have thought we were catching the bus straight to Saigon as no tourists ever visit Ben Tre, least of all on the local bus! Following quite a kerfuffle in the bus station, where nobody spoke English, we eventually got back on another bus and got off in the middle of town. Our problems didn't end there; once we got to the centre we couldn't find a hotel anywhere and the only person we could find who spoke English was a very pushy tout for a local homestay, who wanted to charge us the equivalent of two days budget for a one night stay. 

One hour and several litres of sweat later, we found a bed for the night and set off to explore the town. The waterfront was alive with a vibrant night market selling clothes, shoes and accessories. It really felt like we were off the tourist trail as people in the streets would stop and stare at us. 

We later found out that there are several hotels around a small lake just two blocks back from the river, too bad there wasn't anybody around able to tell us that when we were roaming the streets asking for a hotel!

Ben Tre's small lake, fringed with hotels and coffee cafes.

After nine nights in the Mekong Delta region we were ready to move on to the bright lights of Saigon. We'd crossed into Vietnam at Ha Tien, then stopped at Chau Doc, Can Tho, Vinh Long and Ben Tre. In some places we felt like we were the only tourists in town, in the last two places I'm certain that we were. It's been nice meandering slowly through the rivers and canals of the delta, we've enjoyed the laid back pace of life in the small towns and have been blown away by the kindness and welcoming attitude of the locals, even in the absence of a common language to communicate in. We've traveled on local transport as the high-priced tourist buses don't run much further south than Ho Chi Min City (Saigon). It's been a fun, cheap, sweaty, uncomfortable and interesting experience. On the bus between Chau Doc and Can Tho, for example, the driver and several of the passengers chain smoked for most of the three hour journey, whilst incense burned en masse on the dash; and we shared the back seat of the bus to Ben Tre with a drunk man asleep between us, who flopped alternately onto our shoulders every time we rounded a bend.

Ric's Luxurious Birthday in Can Tho

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RIC STOPHER!!!

We celebrated Ric's 28th birthday in Can Tho, the biggest town in the Mekong Delta region. We started the day at 5am with a sunrise river cruise to Cai Rang floating market where countless boats of all shapes and sizes zig-zagged between one another selling their wares. We bought coffees from one boat and noodle soup from another, before crashing into an old lady's boat and crushing her pan of rice!

Sunrise on the Mekong.

After breakfast at the market our boat 'captain', a middle aged lady in a conical hat, took us around the backwater canals where we witnessed real Delta life; women washing their pans in the river, children bathing, men fishing. The truth is that the water is smelly, dirty and full of rubbish. The waterways and rivers in the Mekong Delta region are all tributaries and channels of the Mekong River that has its source in Tibet. The river runs through China, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia before flowing into the South China Sea in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. Washing your pans/children in a river that has picked up waste and pollution in six different countries has got to be pretty unhealthy. 

Pineapple boat-stalls.

Boats at Cai Rang floating market.

By 9am we were hungry again and ready for a second breakfast of yet more noodle soup (Vietnam's national dish). Then we checked into Can Tho's four star Holiday One Hotel, where we spent the rest of the day in the ice-cold, roof-top swimming pool overlooking the city. It was great to have a bit of luxury after spending the past seven weeks on a serious budget. We had air conditioning, cable TV, a bath tub, the comfiest bed in the world - I enjoyed Ric's birthday just as much as he did! 

We watched the sunset drinking beers in the Sky ar, then after a fancy dinner in the hotel's restaurant we crossed the road to the karaoke bar. Like in Korea, we got our own private room and spent three hours singing everything from Britney Spears to Puff Daddy to Bette Midler.

Ric chilling by the pool at dusk.

Sunset from Holiday One.

No, we're not in France, it's just the Paris Karaoke Bar.

Karaoke is back in our lives again, happy times.

Making Friends in Chau Doc

From Ha Tien we followed the Vietnam-Cambodia border to Chau Doc, a small transit town that serves as an over night stop for tourists taking the Phnom Penh - Saigon boat. We were happy to find that a least a couple of people in Chau Doc spoke reasonable English but once again we felt like the only foreigners in the small dusty town.

After an afternoon scoping out travel agencies we were feeling quite downtrodden as the prices were astronomical and it seemed we wouldn't be able to afford to do anything we wanted to do.

We drank ice coffees in a shady cafe and then walked along the busy riverside that burst into life as the sun went down. There we met a Vietnamese man called Trung, who stopped to chat to us and invited us to join him for breakfast in a local restaurant the following morning. Another example of the wonderful Vietnamese hospitality.

A Vietnamese breakfast of meat, eggs and bread.

We had a very pleasant breakfast with our new friend and then set about trying to see the sights on our shoestring budget. By chance we came across two awesome moto-taxi drivers called Van and Duc, who saved us a ton of money and took us everywhere we wanted to go for a very reasonable price. 

First we visited the river islands where an ethnic minority of Muslim 'Cham' people live. We visited the mosques and saw women weaving scarves on old wooden looms. It strikes me as strange that no matter where you are in the world, the tourist shops are always full of scarves, even in hot, tropical climates like Vietnam, Thailand and India. That said, I still managed to buy one!

Wooden walkway leading to a Cham floating village on one of the river islands.

Ric with our super tour guides for the day, Van (left) and Duc (right).

We mentioned to Van and Duc that we were disappointed by the prices of the river tours, at $20 each from all the agencies in town, there was no way we could afford to take a boat out to the Cambodian border. But our guides came through for us again, calling on a friend with a boat they arranged for us to go out on the river for a two hour tour for just $5 per person! That's more like it. We saw floating villages, fish farms, floating petrol stations, local fishermen using ancient techniques and we went all the way up to the border in our own private boat. It was fantastic.

Fishing on the river at Chau Doc. The woman rows while the man operates the net.

House boat.

Fish are farmed under the floating house boats.

To end our day we zoomed up Sam Mountain on the back of the motorbikes, speeding around the corners at an exhilarating speed. At the top we sat in hammocks admiring the miles and miles of rice fields that surrounded us, and watched the sunset over Cambodia to the west. 

View from Sam Mountain. The tree line on the far left marks the border between Cambodia and Vietnam. 

Sunset over flooded rice fields from Sam Mountain.

We had such a great day zipping around with Van and Duc, they were friendly, knowledgeable and spoke good English. 

They can be contacted for tours:

    Van: 0918 308 460

    Duc: 0944 765 258

After saying goodbye to them and arranging for them to take us to the bus station the following morning, Ric and I returned to the river for an evening stroll. Unbelievably, sitting on a bench, we bumped into a couple that Ric had met on the Galapagos Islands three and a half years earlier. What a small world. Gabby and Yogi were staying in Chau Doc for one evening before continuing on to Phnom Penh by boat in the morning. Having spent the entire day thinking we were the only foreigners in town, we meet a German couple and they turn out to be friends from another trip many years ago. It really is remarkable. We spent a lovely evening having drinks and catching up with them.

Ric reminissing with old friends, Gabby and Yogi.

What The Pho...!?

After crossing into Vietnam at the most southerly boarder crossing (Prek Chak/Xi Xia) we continued on a ten minute bus journey to the small riverside town of Ha Tien, our introduction to Vietnam and the Mekong Delta.

At first everything was going swimmingly; we got moto taxis from the bus station and they didn't try to rip us off, and we found a fantastic hotel with a huge balcony overlooking the river for just $10/night (Hotel Gia Phuk). Once we ventured out into the town, however, life got more difficult. Nobody in Ha Tien speaks English, even the tour agents and hotel staff barely speak the basics. We were trying to hire bicycles, which our guide book recommended, but it was impossible; people shook their heads, covered their ears, jabbered at us in Vietnamese and sent us on wild goose chases around the town. There are only so many times you can mine riding a bike before you call it a day.

Ha Tien riverfront, view from floating cafe.

Instead, we walked along the riverfront and stopped at a floating boat-cafe for a refreshing iced lemon juice, and then walked around the huge central market where more miming and unsuccessful haggling eventually enabled me to buy an umbrella. 

Our first meal in Vietnam was Pho, the national dish comprising noodles, meat, broth and herbs. It was delicious, which is more than I can say about the watery, flavourless Saigon beer.

After more exploring of the town we sat down in a dimly lit, roadside bar where the waitress laughed nervously at us and didn't understand anything we said. As there was no menu, we sat for a while watching the locals and realised that we ought to order coffee. Two shots of good, strong espresso arrived, along with two glasses of iced tea, a tea pot full of hot jasmine tea and two more additional glasses of ice. All but the espressos was free. After a little while we met Denise, from Ireland, and we bonded over being the only tourists in town and having nobody understand us. Once thoroughly hydrated with all the free tea, we hit the night market together and drank beers at a shabby plastic table amid prostitutes, cross dressers and pissed up locals.

 

So many fluids.

Ric with his new friends.

The next day the three of us took a local taxi to Mui Nai beach where we were welcomed by the locals like long lost friends. The sand at Mui Nai is just a blackish strip and behind it were bars and cafes where families and groups of friends sat eating fresh seafood picnics, washing it all down with an impressive amount of alcohol considering it was 10:30 in the morning. We were offered crab legs, quail eggs and shots of local rice whiskey. In Asian culture it's seriously disrespectful to refuse something that is offered to you as a gift, so we tucked into our crab and downed our shots with a smile. The local men adored Ric, posing with him for pictures and plying him with so much alcohol that we had to strategically move on before he got too pissed. What a great welcome to Vietnam!

The highlight of the day was the self-controlled rollercoaster! We were towed uphill to a stunning viewpoint with views all the way back to Bokor Mountain in Kampot. Then we got back in our karts and sped around twists and turns back to the bottom of the mountain, it was great fun. 

Towards Cambodia.

From the hill above Mui Nai beach.

Ha Tien is a small boarder town with very few tourists and but it's got a lot of atmosphere and we had a great time, definitely worth a night or two.

Here's Ric on the rollercoaster: 

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.