Phnom Penh - Day 1

This feels like a lifetime ago now, but waaaaay back in February, we decided to make use of our TET holiday, where we had a little more than two weeks off of school. Mel's friend, Kate, was in South East Asia, and had already visited us in HCMC before doing her own trip through Vietnam, into Laos and down to Cambodia. We had arranged to meet in Phnom Penh, before doing the touristy things around Cambodia together.

The flights into Cambodia are ridiculously expensive, so our method of transport from HCMC to Phnom Penh was bus. Trusted Sinh Tourist was our bus company of choice, and boy were we happy with our decision! Unfortunately, they don't have a sleeper bus option for this trip, so we hopped into the regular, seated bus and began our journey east. The trip was the usual, terrifying experience that we have come to expect of road trips in Vietnam. What made us really appreciate our decision to travel with The Sinh Tourist was that they sorted out all of the admin at the boarder, and that made it a pretty smooth and stress-free process (friend of ours had a nightmare getting through the border as they were un-aided).

The Moc Bai border post.

Once into Cambodia, it became apparent pretty quickly just how dry, sparse and poor the country is. The roads are in even worse shape than in Vietnam, and the landscape is pretty bleak. Where in Vietnam there are quite a few farms lining the roads on the stretches between towns, Cambodia is a dust bowl. The arid landscape features a few shabby shacks on stilts and small groups of brown trees covered in a layer of dust, swept up by the wind as it travels across the empty fields.

The bus that we had caught was part of a greater, organised tour. Meaning that, once we got into Phnom Penh, we were dropped off on a random (ridiculously chaotic) sidewalk with our luggage and our next move was our own problem. This doesn't seem like such a big deal, but open up a Google tab and search for 'Cambodian alphabet' to get an idea of just how foreign a place we had landed in when we looked all around us.

Immediately we were swamped by a pack of ruthless tuk-tuk drivers, eager to take advantage of the 'fresh-off-the-boat' tourists. Throwing out ridiculous prices to take us such a short distance to our hotel. (Google Maps is such a wonderful tool to make sure you don't get ripped-off in this respect!)

Luckily we were able to keep our cool and, utilising the thick skins that we have developed from living in Vietnam, we shrugged them off before ducking into the safety of a nearby restaurant. This was a good opportunity to have some lunch, gather our thoughts and develop a plan of action to get to our hotel using the wifi in the restaurant. The air-conditioning wasn't awful either...

Eventually, we decided that we would walk to The S-21 Prison (The Tual Sleng Genocide Museum), and meet Kate there. The S-21 Prison was a horrific place in the capital city, where the Khmer Rouge converted a high school into a prison / torture / interrogation / execution centre. To say that it was an emotional experience would be a massive understatement. Being in the grounds and buildings provides you with just a hint of how tragic this country's (recent) history is. It was rough!

With access to cells still containing the remnants of torture, write-ups of personal accounts from prisoners, seeing tools and structures used to torture the prisoners and walking through rooms containing photographs of prisoners, you can't help but feel emotionally beat-up by the end of your visit to this museum. That being said, we would definitely recommend taking the time to visit it if you find yourself in Phnom Penh.

One of the rooms used to torture people.

The hanging post. 

Pictures of some of the prisoners.

1m wide cells.

It wasn't as far from the S-21 Prison to our hotel, as from where the bus dropped us off earlier in the day, so we decided to catch a tuk-tuk. We were quite keen to drop off our bags by this point. We made plans with Kate to meet up later that night and bundled into the tuk-tuk, before being shaken off to our hotel (Green Mango Hotel) in one of the thousands of rickety death-mobiles speeding through the streets of Phnom Penh.

That evening, we thought that we would walk down to the river front to see what the vibe was like down there. There are some bars and restaurants lining the street opposite the river and, a little further up the road, there's a night market. We thought that we would take a mosey through to pass some time and because - you know - it's the touristy thing to do. We were pretty underwhelmed by the selection. To be honest, from our experience, most markets in SE Asia are different variations of the same, average products.

Once we had done a loop through the night market, our tummies were beginning to rumble so we strolled along the road trying to select a suitable restaurant. We came across one which had tanks of tiny fish positioned under the tables. We soon realised that they were those fish that suck the dirt and dead skin off your feet. People pay loads to have those little critters suck on the ends of their toes, so we decided that we may as well make use of the free service while enjoying our dinner. We had mixed feelings about this decision. It feels really strange and, at certain points, almost unbearable.

After a meal interrupted by giggles and squeals (manly squeals from Ross, of course), we thought we'd walk around and try find some dessert. We found a little coffee shop and Kate and Ross got coffee slushies. By this point, we were all ready for bed so we decided to walk Kate back to her backpackers; and just as well we did!

What looked like a straight-forward walk back when looking on Google Maps, turned into the three of us getting pretty lost. Now being lost in a foreign place is scary enough. Take a minute and picture being two girls and a guy lost in the dark, dirty alleys of a Cambodian ghetto. At one point, the road we were looking for appeared to go through a gated park. We stepped through the gate and were immediately met by a scene out of a Train Spotting type nightmare. There were small groups of dodgy characters mulling around - some of which looked up as we appeared and looked like they may engage us in conversation. (No doubt it wouldn't have been a conversation about our favourite books or movies.) To top it off, Mel witnessed a guy shooting up some kind of drug. She just so happened to look in his direction as he was plunging the piston of his syringe, emptying whatever contents into his arm. Needless to say, we couldn't get out of there fast enough!

We decided to back-track a little and walk around the park. It wasn't long before we found Kate's backpackers and caught a tuk-tuk back to the safety of our own hotel. It had been a long and eventful day.

First impressions of Cambodia:

* The people are darker in colour than the Vietnamese, and don't seem to be terrified of the sun like their neighbours are.

*There is FAR more poverty in Cambodia than in Vietnam.

*The service industry in Cambodia is better than in Vietnam - the waiters/waitresses give you a menu, then leave you alone to decide what you would like to order. As opposed to in Vietnam where waiters/waitresses stand awkwardly at the edge of your table while you flip through the 78 page menu, trying to decide what you feel like.

*The people who do speak english in Cambodia speak it better than those who speak english in Vietnam.

*Phnom Penh feels less organised and more chaotic than HCMC. (We didn't think that was even possible!)

*There are far more drivers in HCMC, but they react better to the other drivers on the road than the drivers in Cambodia. (Again - a very unexpected observation coming from the worst place to drive in our lives!)

Mekong Delta

We recently had a week off of school, as it was The King's birthday, Freedom Day, and Worker's Day all in one week! Since we're saving furiously for NZ, we decided that a week away would be a bit too much of a splurge and we had a few errands to run in HCM. Mel ended up getting really sick, so it was lucky that she could rest and try to recover. We did however, finally go down to the Mekong Delta! Our friend Duyen is from a town called My Tho, so we headed down there with her and Michael for the night.

First, we had to find the bus stop, which was burried deep in District 5. Duyen organised tickets on a 'local bus' rather than a tourist bus and this bus company only goes down to the Mekong. It was really nice and clean and pretty spacious, we would definitely recommend using them if you go down to the Mekong. It only took and hour and a half to get to My Tho. We walked to Duyen's house, since it's super close to the bus stop, and then we caught a taxi to drop our bags at our hotel. We then made our way across the street to the dock, where we were meeting our tour guide.

Duyen the ninja! She didn't want to get burnt so she wrapped her jacket around her head.

Duyen organised a private tour for us, rather than being placed on a boat with loads of people. This meant that the four of us and our guide had a boat to ourselves! We made our way across to the first island. Here, we got to try some honey tea and dried banana. When we were finished, we walked down a path to our next stop which was to sample some of the local fruit grown in the Mekong. There was nothing new that we hadn't tried before, but it was a very welcome snack.

Our boat - just for the four of us!

'Yummy' green guava.

After we had eaten our full, we made our way to a little dock to catch a row-boat, which meanders through the palm trees along a skinny tributary. As we got on the boat, we were each handed a Vietnamese hat to don for the boat trip. (Just try not to think how many other heads have been in it before yours!!) There were loads of other people there, so it was a bit of a bun fight, but with some clever angles we managed to get some of the pictures to look like it was just us cruising down the river. The people who row the boats are extremely strong and we were well impressed by them. They sit in such an awkward position but manage to row with ease.

Traffic!!

After our little boat journey, we went to see how coconut candy is made. First, they cut open the coconuts and then scoop out all of the flesh. Next, the flesh is squashed in order to get all of the juice out and to make it a smooth consistency. After that, sugar is added to the coconut and it is churned until it is completely combined. The coconut mixture is then poured into moulds before being cut and then wrapped. The ladies wrapping up the candy were amazingly quick! We took a video of one of the ladies and it's hard to believe that it hasn't been sped up at all. After sampling the candy, we bought some of the plain coconut flavoured ones. There are a couple of flavours and we thought of buying some durian flavoured candy for Mike, but we decided against it. (Mike HATES durian with a passion!) We climbed back on the boat and headed to our next island.

Churning the coconut.

Coconut candy squares.

Phoenix island was rather interesting. There was a man who lived there for years and he didn't eat anything except for coconut. He only drank coconut water and he even showered in coconut water! He lived there with 8 ladies, all of them naked, and he travelled around talking to people about his religion. Apparently he weighed 28kgs and he lived to be about 80!! So anyone wanting to lose weight... eat coconuts exclusively.

A random pool of crocs on the island. You could buy meat to tease / feed them with.

There were loads of beautiful lotus flowers on Phoenix Island.

A hollow ball of rice being cooked.

Group shot

Now change position (nice one Ross)

The tour guide then took us to the next island. It was finally time for lunch and we quickly ordered because we were hungry. We then waited, and waited, and waited for our food. They had forgotten about us! We eventually got our food after almost an hour, and then made our way to the next attraction... a horse drawn cart! The poor horse had to pull 6 of us along behind him, luckily it wasn't for long. We then had a refreshing water-coconut drink before making our way back to the boat. Here another coconut awaited us! Fully hydrated, we made our way back to shore for a rest before dinner. We went to have Michael's favourite Vietnamese dish for dinner, Sa Te (pronounced - satay). Sa Te is like a really rich stew with noodles in it, it was delicious and no photos were taken as we ate it too quickly!

They even cut us a straw holder.

On day two of our Mekong trip, we went to a temple near Duyen's house. Here we saw three huge Budda's, one sitting, one standing, and one lying down. We also walked through a temple that has monks living in it.  It was then time to head back to Ho Chi Minh City. Our trip to the Mekong was a great break from the hustle and bustle of the city - thanks for showing us around Duyen!

The monks were having lunch

Life Lately

We've been back in Vietnam for over two weeks now and we haven't really been up to too much. Apartment hunting and sorting out our work permits has been our main priority.

Stacey told us about a cool restaurant in the backpacker area that's really cheap and good value for money. While we were waiting for our bike to be fixed we went and tried out some chicken burgers. 

We've been hunting for an apartment to live in and with that you get to see some great places, some ok places, and some 'how on earth do you expect to rent this place out??' places. The one apartment had a glittery basin in the bathroom!

We went to go and see Jurassic World and we got a Minions popcorn combo. We now have a Minions lunchbox which is so cool!! Not to mention the major street cred we're going to have with our students.

Ross has been doing loads of shoe testing lately, so he's received a few new pairs of running shoes recently. Here is his latest pair:

Our new school is called the American International School (AIS). They've recently built a new campus which has held just an elementary school until now, but from this year the high school has moved out there too. To say it's over the top is putting it lightly. It looks like a palace or hotel and it has really big school grounds (for a Vietnamese school). We aren't working at this campus, but will be at a much smaller campus in town. 

We always love a sweet treat and decided to try out Gloria Jeans the other day. It was delicious!

We spotted this great family vehicle at the shops the other day!

Tom and Stacey have very generously allowed us to stay with them while we look for an apartment. We went to an old faithful Vietnamese restaurant the other night. The menu is in Vietnamese so we weren't quite sure what we were ordering, but the food is always good so it didn't really matter!

We've decided that we'd like to have a poker evening some time soon. Stace and Mel are a little bit rusty, so we had a practice round the other night. We rounded up all of our 200, 500, and 1000 dong notes and shared them out so that there was something at stake.

Soon much money! (Ok, about R10)

 We love a good deal, so when we were deciding what to have for lunch and saw a buy 1, get 1 free sign outside Carl's Jr we couldn't resist. The burgers are huge and quite nice, but we were super excited to try the fries with mayo and bacon! Unfortunately they were a bit of a let down.

Rugby season is always a fun time here. We went down to our favourite pub (Harry Casual) for some drinks and what we hoped would be a Springbok victory. Unfortunately it wasn't to be but, we had a good time anyway.

Our favourite thing about New Zealand (besides seeing family and friends, the beautiful scenery and pies) was the flat whites! It's the perfect coffee. We were super excited when we went out for brunch and discovered them on the restaurant's menu. There was a storm brewing so, even though it was mid-morning, it was quite gloomy. The aircon was also quite cool so we tricked ourselves into thinking we were still in New Zealand. If anyone in the Phu My Hung area is looking for a flat white... Eden is the place!

We finally found an apartment!! We searched for two weeks and nothing really came up. We'll give you a tour as soon as we move in (they need to re-paint and fix up the kitchen a bit). After we signed the lease we went to Dunkin Donuts to celebrate!