The Never Ending Journey

The flight to DaNang was short and sweet, just over an hour, with almost half of that sitting on the taxiway waiting for planes ahead of us.  It took little or no time for our luggage to arrive and we spotted our driver almost immediately. He even had my name spelled correctly on his paper sign.  The trip to Hoi An took less than half an hour and we were checked in, showered, changed and enjoying lunch by 1:30pm.     Even though it was a toasty 29 degrees it was still a lot more comfortable than HCMC.   We took a slow walk to the town centre and discovered that Old Town was an amazing blend of old Chinese buildings and architecture. Officially one pays an admission charge to enter Old Town (Consider it a donation for upkeep that also includes access to 5 buildings of your choice.(We did enter the Cantonese Assembly Hall with a large dragon in front. An open courtyard lead to a large alter at the back which was dedicated to  Quan Cong, apparently an este...

The alarm went off at 5 and we met our driver at 6:02am. We then waited at the next hotel as the group from there took 20 minutes to drag their asses on board.  This same group seemed to require a coffee break and or a pee break every 20 minutes.  The trip to Cai Bei took just over 90 minutes and after driving through the largely none descript town for a short while we parked near the water.  A short walk took us to the dock where we boarded a tourist boat that seemed seaworthy enough to trust for an hour or two. Our “trip” to the floating market was a bit of a letdown as the floating market consisted of one boat selling a variety of fruits and drinks. Actually there were a couple of other boats but they seemed to be offering clothing and items that required the purchase of multiple units. Zing all honesty the guide from the previous day already warned us that the market varied in size depending on the time of day. He also stated that it seemed to be a slowly dying in...

Breakfast at the hotel on day 2 offered some interesting choices- spaghetti Bolognese , fried rice and pho. There was, apparently also toast and cheese, but somebody got to it before me.  After breakfast we took a walk to the local market, about the size of a small town shopping mall. Mostly clothing and crafts, it seemed to be laid out by groupings- all the t-shirts in one area etc. Based on the back and forth between merchants I suspected that they are probably all selling stuff from one central vendor. Any colour or style they didn’t have seemed to be just a yell away and someone would come to supply it. Priced did not change much either. After checking out of our hotel we cabbed it to Hotel Elios, our home for the next 3 days. We arrived at 11:30 am and were allowed to check in immediately, even though check in time was 1:30.  The first order of business was getting a SIM card set up for one of our phones. A data plan for a month- 4Gb of data cost just over $7.50 US. ...

Just a quick note to anyone reading this blog  It appears that Amish terrorists have taken over the Net and reduced download speed to that of a buggy with square wheels.  Seriously, internet speeds at this and the previous Vietnamese hotel are not even 1/15th the speeds we were getting in Cambodia so there is little chance of me posting updates until we change hotels on Tuesday when we move to Hue.I’m using our cellphone to create a hotspot, otherwise this message probably wouldn’t get sent PERIOD      Stay tuned!!!!

The flight to Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon and here after abbreviated to HCMC was less than an hour in length. Far better than the 6 hour bus ride with an added 2 hours to secure a Visa and clear customs. That part was almost the same length. I had never seen such as slow process in all my years of travelling. That it was topped off by the cashier ripping us off only added to the pain. Instrad of giving us $50 in change from our hundred she gave us two twenties and a 200,000 VND note. The latter is worth about $8.50US and not the $10 she insisted it replaced. It wasn’t the amount but the principle. “ Welcome to Vietnam, you’ve just been had by a government official. Bitch!  In spite of the almost two hour delay, our pre-arranged ride was still waiting for us. The airport to downtown drive is probably scarey even at the best of times but at 5pm it looked like someone had kicked over an ant nest. Except, instead of ants the scurrying insects were several thousand commuters on bikes ...

Having been emotionally drained by our visit to the Genocide Musem yesterday, I decided that I didn’t want to spend a bone shaking hour in a tuk tuk to visit the Killing Fields. Instead we decided on a visit to the Royal Palace. It is a fairly massive complex with about 25 significant buildings or monuments. It is more or less divided into 2 separate areas. Entering first into the eastern section, the Throne Hall is the most significant building and features ornate roof lines typical of the Khmer style of architecture. Many of the other buildings were off limits- apparently in preparation for  some official ceremonies scheduled more tomorrow.Moving into the western section, the main focal point was the Silver Pagoda, also known as the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The main feature of the building was a life size solid gold Buddha adorned with over 2000 diamonds.  Other things of note in the same area were a giant mural covering the inner surface of the outer wall. As well as...

It is now 11pm on Sunday 17th. We spent most of last night and this morning suffering the consequences of probably some contaminated ice in a very highly rated restaurant. A diet of PeptoBismol shooters, and Ramen soup noodles helped replenish enough electrolytes to allow us to venture out around 2pm.  A tuk tuk ride across town brought us to the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, also known as S-21. A school converted by the Khmer Rouge into a secret prison in the heart of the city, it was one of 200 scattered around the country and served.as a torture unit where prisoners were kept alive long enough to provide forced confessions of their “crimes” against the State. These crimes could be for things as simple as wearing glasses, a sign of an intellectual. Artists, the better educated and those with skills like physicians were fair game.  The original school consisted of 4 blocks of  3 story classrooms which were converted into torture rooms and prison cells. Internal walls of ...

For some reason my body has fallen into a routine of falling asleep around 10pm followed by awakening around 12:30 or 1 am before finally falling back to sleep around 2:30. This does seem to give me a chance to reflect on the days activities and add to my blog, but it tends to send my mind racing to make note of everything before I forget it.  Tomorrow we say goodbye to Mr Lim and the city of Siem Reap. A roughly six hour bus ride will take us to the capitol city of Phnom Penh for 3 nights. At this point, while we have a hotel booked, we have no concrete plans. Options might include the National Palace which is only 2 blocks from our hotel as well as the National Museum. I suppose a stop at the the Genocide Museum should be added to the list as well as the Killing Fields, some 7 km from the city centre.  While I feel a moral obligation to see these significant memorials to the evil that man can do,, I feel reluctant to participate in using such atrocities as a form of entert...

The last 2 temples we planned to visit were quite far from the city-the first, Banteay Sarai was about 30 km out and featured a walled complex. One of the smallest temples of the Angkor complex, it featured stone with a pinkish tint and extremely intricate detail in the carvings. It is suggested that this probably means that it was actually designed by females rather than males!  Perhaps the most beautiful of all the temples, the site was quite crowded with tourists, despite the distance. The next stop was Beng Melea a temple in complete ruin, some 48 km from the city Totally ruined might not even be enough to describe the massive blocks that seemed to have been thrown around by  a giant tossing his LEGO set across the room. The damage was created, not by any giant but simply by nature. Seeds deposited on walls had lead to trees growing on top of structures, the root systems ultimately forcing the buildings apart.  A final stop, suggested by Mr Lim, to...

Noodle soup with fish balls does not sound like a normal breakfast item , but in this town, I guess anything goes. While that was Susanna’s choice, I settled for a more mundane omelette. As usual Mr Lim was waiting for us when we returned to our hotel lobby.   It was still comfortably cool when we arrived at our first temple of the day. Preah Khan was similar in appearance to Ta Prom ( TombRaider) but without the significant root damage of the latter. Over the course of the day we tackled Neak Poan, built in the centre of a reservoir with few remaining structures still visible. That was followed by a walk to Ta Som temple. It’s most notable feature was a massive tree growing over and through the stonework making up its west entrance. East Mebong featured elephant statues at its four corners as well as five fairly well preserved towers on its upper level. A return visit to Pre Rup ( sunset view) found me touring the place alone as Susanna felt too tired to climb any more s...

OK, so the title of this piece is a real groaner but you can’t expect dignity and decorum when I’m on a roll.   The alarm went off at 6:45 this morning but I’d already been up for half an hour anyway.  Breakfast, at $5 was the most overpriced meal of the trip so far. Scrambled eggs, toast and a couple of slices of  watermelon, along with some mediocre coffee. I think we’ll go looking for a congee and noodle shop tomorrow.  Mr. Lim was waiting in the lobby when we returned downstairs at 8am. The first stop of the day was Angkor Wat, the most famous and most visited of the Angkor temples.   With the sun in the background, our first view was rather hazy and made photography a challenge. The temple itself is situated at the centre of a large rectangular man made moat. The normal causeway was under repair so we entered via a rather bouncy floating bridge of Japanese construction . We spent approximately 2 & 1/2 hours exploring the actual temple. The main tem...

By my own observation, crossing the street in Cambodia appears only slightly less dangerous than bungee jumping.   It seems that they lose, on average, about 2400 people annually in motor vehicle accidents. Quite a staggering figure for a country of around 16 million. That works out to 15 deaths per 100,000- approx. 3 times as high as Canada. Of those deaths, 70% are motorcyclists and a surprisingly low 12% for pedestrians.  As an exercise in what most would consider stupidity, I crossed 3 main roads near our hotel tonight while searching out restaurants. There are very few crosswalks and those are barely visible with the painted lines worn away to nothing. Controlled intersections are virtually non existent so crossing any street requires one to wait for a reaonable break in traffic then a mad dash to the middle of the road and then a final dash to the other side. At dusk and later this manoeuvre becomes close to suicidal. The majority of vehicles on the road are motorcycl...

After a barely helpful siesta we made our way downstairs at 4pm to find our guide awaiting our arrival. Mr Lim Pengkhun, jumped up and placed his hands in a prayer like position and bowed. My attempt to mirror his actions was rather clumsy by comparison. After shaking hands it was down to the business of working out our plans for the day. A large laminated map was offered showing the vast area that the temples of Angkor occupied. Today our main purpose was to purchase 3 day passes and catch a view of the sunset from one of the ruins. While we were discussing options, Susanna arrived, still a little groggy from her all too short nap. Once introductions had been made, we piled into his immaculately maintained 2000 Lexus SUV and began our trip to the Angkor ticket office.  By way of an intro, Mr Lim, as I will call him is a  pleasant. 39 year old Cambodian Of Chinese decent. We were introduced on Facebook, of all places, by a mutual acquaintance from Toronto. Married with 2 ...

It’s 3pm in Siem Reap which means ir’s 3am in Canada.  Despite a late start from Toronto due to the need to de-ice the plane we actually managed to arrive in Hong Kong on time. Although I was expecting better from Cathay Pacific the meal service sucked. While offering a choice of 4 meals, all that was left by the time they reached us was a half assed attempt at pasta served with squash.  The arrival process in HK was fairly smooth but the kicker was the distance between the arrival and departure gates. I’m guessing it was close to 1.5km, broken up by the odd section of moving floor. Nothing like a mad dash between gates after being relatively sleepless for the better part of a day. After a flight lasting just over 2 hours we landed in Siem Reap, got our eVisas approved, grabbed our luggage and waited for our ride to the hotel, and waited and waited and waited. I guess somebody forgot about us so after a couple of frantic emails they sent a TukTuk driver to collect us. I’m p...

Hi Folks,                  If you are reading this you are looking at my first attempt to set up a permanent Blog rather than the temporary ones that I typically set up prior to our trips.    At this point I am still editing and making changes to the settings and layout, so it's not looking quite the way I want at this point.     If you click on the bars on the left hand side at the top of the page you will find links to my previous travel blogs including my first attempt " Birth Control Pills ........." which may also include some none travel related subjects.   Time permitting I will start adding further links to other sites and I hope that I can start adding photographs of the various places we have visited. This is not always possible since internet speeds in many locations are exceptionally slow and images can take a considerable amount of time to upload.  With the upcoming changes to Google that have b...

Here I am looking over my last attempt at keeping a blog of my travels through Eastern Europe and my failure to type at the same breakneck speed as our journey through 6 or 7 countries in less than a month.   While I always start out with good intentions I invariably find myself fighting shitty internet speeds or no internet at all and I give up.   Will my next trip be any different? Who the heck knows.   Sunday night we are entering seriously uncharted waters as we head for Pearson ( Lester B Pearson Airport in Toronto) perhaps the most shining example of how not to build an airport anywhere as it has the most dysfunctional flow of any flight centre on the planet.  If you are lucky you can actually catch a plane without finding out your previously assigned gate has been changed to the one furthest away and you have 10 minutes to do a 1/2 mile sprint, only to discover that your flight has been delayed because your pilot just arrived from Vancouver and he's also a...