We fixed the price, we got to the boat, it turned our our man on the scene(MOTS) wasn't actually the boat driver, but that was okay, the boatman and his lovely wife and daughter obviously knew what they were doing. We had the boat pretty much to ourselves with only a Japanese guy sharing the boat with us. As we were getting on the boat the MOTS said 'you pay me balance now'. Of course we almost did, cos even after 3 months we still have a little faith and trust. Then DT was like, 'no, other end' - we now speak in these weird little half sentences.
The Mekong is huge!! I'll repeat that - The Mekong is huge!! Man it's a big river. You think you are on the other side and low and behold, it is just an island. It is amazingly busy, with lots of people living on the river, so you go past other boats and there are people washing their hair, brushing their teeth, every ablution possible. Sam and Mick decided to test the water filter bottle so they scooped up some water and put in the filter and had a wee drink. No terrible side affects, it was a very expensive bottle, of course it would work. Sam told me later he had the seen the boat driver and his family drinking the water as well, but straight out of the river, then he said he saw the Mother hold the little girl over the edge to have a crap! I think he might have wished he had waited before testing the filter bottle.
We went to a floating market, but it wasn't that interesting, what was interesting though, was the way the town was built on the water and everyone's back garden was liquid. Much like Venice is I suppose, it was really peaceful after the madness of the roads. We got taken to the obligatory honey shop stop and managed to buy some products - how could we not, they were yummy. We thought that the honey would be useful for snacks with the Vietnamese Bread - baguettes, but unfortunately with the ants we kept it in the fridge at the next hotel and I think it is still there.
We started to feel a bit uneasy on the way to My Tho when the boat driver stopped at the beginning of an island and called out to some fisherman. Obviously we couldn't understand a word, except for My Tho and lots of pointing by the two fishermen, the boater and his wife. Which incidentally is pretty cool to watch when you haven't a clue what is being said, but everyone gets really enthusiastic with their conversations. So he set off in the direction of the pointing, I said to DT, 'that bugger's never been here before, he hasn't a clue where to go. We had assumed that because My Tho is down river, you can't miss it! Obviously not when the river is the size of a small ocean! Anyway, a bit further down the track, the scene is repeated. Our antennae were twirling a bit now, but for no reason as shortly after the big beautiful new My Tho suspension bridge appeared before us and all was good. Until... the boatman, pulled into the bank and said ' You can hop out now and bicycle into town - not far'. Aahh No Actually. It was kind of funny because the way he said it was like an enthusiastic tour guide unveiling details of the special offer - free for you. At this stage, remember the river is huge, the bridge is just a misty smudge on the horizon and we are in fact about 10km out of My Tho.
DT got on his 'don't mess with me voice' though and after repeated gesturing to the bridge and My Tho, My Tho, and the man reluctantly pulled out and off we chugged. He then tried two more times to dump us and finally evicted us right below smack into the middle of a building site right below the bridge. We finally paid the ferryman and wobbled off, I could say much to the amusement of the site workers, but they didn't even bat an eyelid! No OSH reps here to worry about Mum, Dad and the 3 kids weaving through their site.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
We can't believe we have travelled all the way to Vietnam and we're going to Miss Saigon!
I thought that one up today on my bike and just couldn't resist it!!
Wow, we can't believe how a silly little thing like a border can change the environment so much! Once again it feels like we're in a a different country. The first few days are always a bit hairy, new road rules - no actually they stay the same - non existent!, new currency to convert in our heads, before every single purchase. Sometimes when we're under pressure we still mentally go back through all the currencies just to check whether or not we're being ripped!
The first day's riding was a bit of a nightmare for everyone, Dave's gammy knee was playing up, I stabbed my finger at breakfast, then fell off at the first set of traffic lights - forgot to uncleat! It must have looked pretty funny though to the people behind me! It was hot, it was windy and amazingly for us kiwis used to the wide open spaces we travelled for 55km and never got into the country. Occasionally we would see a mileage marker saying xkm to the such and such village, how they knew where one finished and the next one started is a mystery. Anyway we came to a mad city of popn 300,000. This was also a nightmare and we were glad to leave this morning!
We decided to change sides of the river and started our day by catching a ferry with the early morning commuters and rode basically parallel to the road we were on the previous day. This was much nicer, still busy, but not quite so manic.
When you are riding over here you have to really concentrate (a challenge for all of us). In your path are a number of pedestrians - ambling along in your path (in either direction), gorgeously elegant school girls (and stinky boys!) ride along 2 or 3 abreast. But the biggest hazard would have to be those crazies on bikes, feet and scooters who zoom along on the wrong side of the road! Nobody even bats an eyelid. Sometimes you are cycling along, look up and 'Hello Dolly' you're about 3 nanoseconds away from a major. You do a major swerve accompanied by a startled grimace of fear, mixed with oops, mixed with sorry - in every language you don't quite know.
What does the person you've almost flattened do. Nothing, they just carry on with that serene, cool as look on their face as if to say - I knew it would be okay!
Our 3rd Vietnamese night is in a town called Vinh Long. We have arranged to continue our journey downriver by boat. We are going to one of those floating markets first thing (8am) and then to a town called My Tho (I think you say Me Toe) and hopefully from there we can jump across to the coast to begin the northwards part of the journey. By doing this hopefully we won't have to go into Ho Chi Minh.
Wow, we can't believe how a silly little thing like a border can change the environment so much! Once again it feels like we're in a a different country. The first few days are always a bit hairy, new road rules - no actually they stay the same - non existent!, new currency to convert in our heads, before every single purchase. Sometimes when we're under pressure we still mentally go back through all the currencies just to check whether or not we're being ripped!
The first day's riding was a bit of a nightmare for everyone, Dave's gammy knee was playing up, I stabbed my finger at breakfast, then fell off at the first set of traffic lights - forgot to uncleat! It must have looked pretty funny though to the people behind me! It was hot, it was windy and amazingly for us kiwis used to the wide open spaces we travelled for 55km and never got into the country. Occasionally we would see a mileage marker saying xkm to the such and such village, how they knew where one finished and the next one started is a mystery. Anyway we came to a mad city of popn 300,000. This was also a nightmare and we were glad to leave this morning!
We decided to change sides of the river and started our day by catching a ferry with the early morning commuters and rode basically parallel to the road we were on the previous day. This was much nicer, still busy, but not quite so manic.
When you are riding over here you have to really concentrate (a challenge for all of us). In your path are a number of pedestrians - ambling along in your path (in either direction), gorgeously elegant school girls (and stinky boys!) ride along 2 or 3 abreast. But the biggest hazard would have to be those crazies on bikes, feet and scooters who zoom along on the wrong side of the road! Nobody even bats an eyelid. Sometimes you are cycling along, look up and 'Hello Dolly' you're about 3 nanoseconds away from a major. You do a major swerve accompanied by a startled grimace of fear, mixed with oops, mixed with sorry - in every language you don't quite know.
What does the person you've almost flattened do. Nothing, they just carry on with that serene, cool as look on their face as if to say - I knew it would be okay!
Our 3rd Vietnamese night is in a town called Vinh Long. We have arranged to continue our journey downriver by boat. We are going to one of those floating markets first thing (8am) and then to a town called My Tho (I think you say Me Toe) and hopefully from there we can jump across to the coast to begin the northwards part of the journey. By doing this hopefully we won't have to go into Ho Chi Minh.
CAMBODIAN OVERVIEW
After our big Siem Reap blow out, which we ended up extending by one day - cos it was just so good, we embarked on our biggest effort so far. 65km then 86km, then 86 followed by a leisurely 74 - 4 days of hard riding. It was great (ish) and much better than we had originally thought as the roads have now been paved all of the way from Siem Reap. Other blogs we had read, talked about the wicked dust and the horrendous potholes. Saying that the last 3 days were some of the worst riding we have experienced.
A quick word about the Cambodian traffic. There are never any traffic queues as nobody ever gets stuck behind trucks, buses, cars etc. This is partly because the roads are really straight but mostly because they are all stone mad. The pass everywhere, through towns, on bridges, on blind corners, it seems that so long as you sit on your horn, long and loud, drive at full speed and use your indicator - its allowed! Usually this wouldn't bother us because most of the roads we have been on so far have a cycle lane for motor scooters, bicycles, pedestrians, bullock carts, pony carts, stalls, parking, someone's wedding ceremony (not really). It appears that someone suddenly had a policy brainwave to abolish the cycle lane, fill it up with potholes and make the road have a big drop off. If you lost concentration and went off the road, you got a nice big jolt to wake you up (and increase the number of punctures you were likely to have).
Before we put Cambodia into the itinerary, I have to admit I'd never thought too much about it and I have to admit, didn't even make the connection with Kampuchea - dumb aye. So anyway we got reading and found out about Angkhor Wat and the Khmer Rouge (learnt how to pronounce Khmer). Basically (if you are as ignorant as we were). Pre 1975 there was a civil war with the country folk against the Government. The Khmer Rouge won. They ordered everyone to leave the capital and set up an agrarian society where you were vilified or possibly worse - shot if you were an intellectual (this could amount to speaking a foreign language or merely wearing glasses), if your skin was too white, if you worked for the previous Government etc. Everyone got shipped out to the country side and put to work growing rice and vegetables for the new Government. 3 million of the country's 17 million population was killed in the following 4 years. Those that survived were left displaced, mourning, starving and the task of trying to rebuild their country. They have done this really well with lots of new infrastructure (the aforementioned roads) and Siem Reap and Phnom and Penh are International Cities.
We finished our Cambo experience by travelling down the Mekong on a boat to the Vietnamese border. It was a 4 hour journey which we shared with some Americans Dad and his 3 sons (18-25) who had been on a similar tour to ours, but 6 weeks via planes, trains, buses, cars.
A quick word about the Cambodian traffic. There are never any traffic queues as nobody ever gets stuck behind trucks, buses, cars etc. This is partly because the roads are really straight but mostly because they are all stone mad. The pass everywhere, through towns, on bridges, on blind corners, it seems that so long as you sit on your horn, long and loud, drive at full speed and use your indicator - its allowed! Usually this wouldn't bother us because most of the roads we have been on so far have a cycle lane for motor scooters, bicycles, pedestrians, bullock carts, pony carts, stalls, parking, someone's wedding ceremony (not really). It appears that someone suddenly had a policy brainwave to abolish the cycle lane, fill it up with potholes and make the road have a big drop off. If you lost concentration and went off the road, you got a nice big jolt to wake you up (and increase the number of punctures you were likely to have).
Before we put Cambodia into the itinerary, I have to admit I'd never thought too much about it and I have to admit, didn't even make the connection with Kampuchea - dumb aye. So anyway we got reading and found out about Angkhor Wat and the Khmer Rouge (learnt how to pronounce Khmer). Basically (if you are as ignorant as we were). Pre 1975 there was a civil war with the country folk against the Government. The Khmer Rouge won. They ordered everyone to leave the capital and set up an agrarian society where you were vilified or possibly worse - shot if you were an intellectual (this could amount to speaking a foreign language or merely wearing glasses), if your skin was too white, if you worked for the previous Government etc. Everyone got shipped out to the country side and put to work growing rice and vegetables for the new Government. 3 million of the country's 17 million population was killed in the following 4 years. Those that survived were left displaced, mourning, starving and the task of trying to rebuild their country. They have done this really well with lots of new infrastructure (the aforementioned roads) and Siem Reap and Phnom and Penh are International Cities.
We finished our Cambo experience by travelling down the Mekong on a boat to the Vietnamese border. It was a 4 hour journey which we shared with some Americans Dad and his 3 sons (18-25) who had been on a similar tour to ours, but 6 weeks via planes, trains, buses, cars.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Spiritual Siem Reap
The big 101km day was huge. But the kids did brilliantly, the big boys were very patient and the little boy and the Mother, worked hard! Mr Pumpy had written in his blog that Siem Reap was tourist heaven, don't fight it, order a pizza and a beer and put your feet up - right oh Mr Pumpy and what's more we'll cycle over 100km to do it. Man it was worth it too. All those negative vibes that had dogged me since the border, just fell away as I walked into the hotel and the receptionist uttered those magic words and here are your vouchers for our buffet breakfast, Madame.
We dedicated the next day to the swimming pool and schoolwork. I felt like I never wanted to leave to the hotel, but as usual on this trip, while what you are doing is always great, the next thing just gets better and better. We planned to ride our bikes to Angkhor Wat (about 6km out of town) the next day. Since the planning stages this had been one of the most do's
It was the centre of the Khmer empire from 9th - 15th century. Built originally by a Hindu King, taking over 37 years, it was changed to a Buddhist Temple because that was the faith of the next leader. It was truly awesome and we only got to see a small part of it. Adjacent to it is Angkhor Thom which is the city that services it as only the monks, king and high priests were worthy of going in their and even they lived somewhere else, only going there to talk to the gods and to pray.
On the journey here and during our time in Siem Reap we have been humbled by the friendliness and hospitality of the Cambodians. As a country they have been through so much, but their level of customer service is unsurpassed, Whether it be in the lovely hotels or the smallest shack on the side of the road they are just a pleasure to do business with.
We dedicated the next day to the swimming pool and schoolwork. I felt like I never wanted to leave to the hotel, but as usual on this trip, while what you are doing is always great, the next thing just gets better and better. We planned to ride our bikes to Angkhor Wat (about 6km out of town) the next day. Since the planning stages this had been one of the most do's
It was the centre of the Khmer empire from 9th - 15th century. Built originally by a Hindu King, taking over 37 years, it was changed to a Buddhist Temple because that was the faith of the next leader. It was truly awesome and we only got to see a small part of it. Adjacent to it is Angkhor Thom which is the city that services it as only the monks, king and high priests were worthy of going in their and even they lived somewhere else, only going there to talk to the gods and to pray.
On the journey here and during our time in Siem Reap we have been humbled by the friendliness and hospitality of the Cambodians. As a country they have been through so much, but their level of customer service is unsurpassed, Whether it be in the lovely hotels or the smallest shack on the side of the road they are just a pleasure to do business with.
Cavorting across Cambodia
Well Everyday as we are riding I am busily composing blogs in my head and I must say, they are mostly pretty damn good. But alas they never seem to make it to the laptop, what with getting a place which has wifi and if we do finding my place in the queue for the computer that night or maybe its because we are just plain knackered at the end of the day it doesn't seem to have happened. So I will start at the start and catch you up with all the important news.
The night before we left Thailand we booked our flights to the UK. We were all pretty excited as we now had a bit more of an idea of what we were doing and the timescale we were adhering to. I wasn't looking forward to leaving Thailand as I understood it, in as much as I knew what food to order, I had a good idea of how the drivers behaved, the weather was lovely and there was always 7-11 and those Lays potato chips for when the going got tough.
Right from the first hassles for visas before we even exited Thailand, I had negative vibes about Cambodia, these fears were not allayed when we spent that first night in Poipet. It just seemed like another country - and guess what it was!
A really hard ride saw us in Sisophon which is a crossroads town where the road splits and the '6' goes to the left of the lake and the '5' goes to the right for almost 400km before they meet again just outside Phnom Penh. In the middle is Tonle Sap which is the largest freshwater floodplain lake in the world. I'm not sure how many freshwater floodplain lakes there are in the world, but this is the biggest and covers 12000 sqkm during the monsoon. Pretty huge.
We had a few hotels to choose from in Sisphon, but ended up in the last one before leaving town, mostly because I was so paranoid about our 101km ride to Siem Reap the next day - I wanted to get as close as possible to make the next day a bit shorter. This was to become our undisputed best value room deal ever for the grand sum of $10, we managed to fit the family into two rooms - with ensuite! It was pretty basic though, but the kids were rapt because for the first time in weeks they could sit on their beds without bruising their tail bones (Thai beds were very firm!).
The night before we left Thailand we booked our flights to the UK. We were all pretty excited as we now had a bit more of an idea of what we were doing and the timescale we were adhering to. I wasn't looking forward to leaving Thailand as I understood it, in as much as I knew what food to order, I had a good idea of how the drivers behaved, the weather was lovely and there was always 7-11 and those Lays potato chips for when the going got tough.
Right from the first hassles for visas before we even exited Thailand, I had negative vibes about Cambodia, these fears were not allayed when we spent that first night in Poipet. It just seemed like another country - and guess what it was!
A really hard ride saw us in Sisophon which is a crossroads town where the road splits and the '6' goes to the left of the lake and the '5' goes to the right for almost 400km before they meet again just outside Phnom Penh. In the middle is Tonle Sap which is the largest freshwater floodplain lake in the world. I'm not sure how many freshwater floodplain lakes there are in the world, but this is the biggest and covers 12000 sqkm during the monsoon. Pretty huge.
We had a few hotels to choose from in Sisphon, but ended up in the last one before leaving town, mostly because I was so paranoid about our 101km ride to Siem Reap the next day - I wanted to get as close as possible to make the next day a bit shorter. This was to become our undisputed best value room deal ever for the grand sum of $10, we managed to fit the family into two rooms - with ensuite! It was pretty basic though, but the kids were rapt because for the first time in weeks they could sit on their beds without bruising their tail bones (Thai beds were very firm!).
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