Hoi An & Dong Hoi

We were dropped in Da Nang in the morning and from there had to make our own way to Hoi An. Thankfully, there was a local bus leaving from across the bus station. We, along with every other westerner that had been dumped there, hopped on the bus and settled ourself in for the ride. Once we got to Hoi An, Beryl asked one of the tuk tuk drivers that were pestering us to use their phone.  She called the hotel and they kindly came and collected us from the bus station.  We had read in reviews that there was a pool which was one of the reasons we decided to go with that place but when we saw it we knew instantly that we wouldn't be using it. It was right in the middle of the reception area and the water was freezing cold. We had booked into a dorm room, but what they gave us was a private room with two double beds for the four of us, lovely surprise! 

Hoi An is one of the prettiest places we've been to. It's so picturesque. There is a lovely river running through the small town and lanterns hanging everywhere. After having some breakfast we went for a walk down the the river and across the bridge. 

We went for lunch at Madam Banh Mi's sandwich place.  She is world renouned for making the best Vietnamese banh mis.  They really were quite delicious and cheap too! While we were walking around the town some ladies carrying baskets of fruit on their shoulders stopped and asked if we wanted to take their picture.  Once we had taken their picture they then asked if we wanted to try on their hats and to try carrying the fruit, we duly did.  This was then followed by them asking if we would like to buy some fruit.  Of course we would, these ladies have been so kind, why not, let's get some bananas we thought.  $6!! Six dollars she wanted for 5 tiny little bananas! We were well and truly duped.  We bought them, and then ended up not eating the ridiculously expensive bananas.

We went for dinner with a girl Beryl had previously met and some people from her hostel.  There was 11 of us in total, we went to a wee restaurant that we had seen that day while walking around.  The food was mediocre at best and the local beer, although very very cheap, tasted watered down.  After dinner we went to a bar called Tiger Tiger where they kindly set up some tables for us across the road so that we could sit outside and watch the fireworks when they came.  The fireworks were amazing! They set off so many at the same time and the display went on for about half an hour! They were so close that my neck was getting so sore looking at them by the end.  We stayed out until the early hours of the morning celebrating our second new year. 

We had a bit of a lazy day.  We went back to Madam Banh Mi's for lunch which was delicious again, and after spending quite some time trying to book a bus out of Hoi An, we finally spoke to someone sensible in Tourist Information who told us that the couple of days after Tët would be cheap on the train in the direction we wanted to go in.  Unfortunately this meant making a trip to Da Nang the following day to get tickets from the train station.  We had a very mediocre dinner at a street food place.  It was very very busy and so we thought it must be good but,unfortunately not, the food was bland and not particularly cheap either.  Not sure what the appeal is there.  We went for some beautiful cocktails at a restaurant overlooking the river.  I opted for a white wine sangria which was one of the nicest cocktails I've ever had, just delicious.  

The next morning we got up early and caught the local bus to Da Nang so we could book our train to Dong Hoi.  The station had been shut over Tët and so it was ridiculously busy when we were there,  but we finally managed to get our really cheap tickets and headed back to Hoi An for lunch.  Kay, Jess and Beryl decided to hire some bicycles and tour around Hoi An for a while, I wasn't feeling very well and so decided to just stay at home and nap for the rest of the day.  It wasn't long before beryl was back in the room though as it turns out, whoever coined the phrase 'it's like riding a bike' has clearly never met beryl.  We decided to take a walk to the beach instead.  It wasn't meant to be that far away but ended up taking us about an hour to walk.

We went to what they were calling a food court for dinner.  Spoke to a French family who advised us to have some savoury pancakes which were amazing! We shared one between us and then since it was so delicious we ordered lots more food. Went to an ice-cream parlour, which had 57 different flavours, for dessert.  I think my favourite flavour was Cointreau or maybe mint....they were all pretty good in all fairness.  

We woke early the next morning to pack and check out of our accommodation. We wanted to go to a restaurant we'd read about but they had been shut over Tët and so we tried one last time to see if they were open but, alas, it was not to be unfortunately. Back to madam Bahn Mi's to get some sandwiches before getting our taxi to Da Nang.  It was only myself, Kay and Jess getting the train to Dong Hoi.  Beryl had decided to rent a bike and driver to take her to Hue and she was going to meet us in Dong Hoi the following morning.  

A couple of hours into our train journey, we felt a thud and then the train came to a stop.  All the Vietnamese passengers were up looking out the windows.  Eventually the nosiness took over and Kay got up to look also.  I'm glad I stayed put because what she saw, was a man being pull out from under our carriage.  The train was about ten carriages long and we were third from the end so the poor man had been ran over by 7 carriages.  The Vietnamese didn't seem very fazed by the whole thing, I don't know I'd this is maybe a regular occurrence or what.  All the westeners, by comparison, seemed pretty shell shocked.  It wasn't long before the train was moving again though and we arrived in Dong Hoi around 9pm. We got a taxi to our accommodation and once we'd checked in, had some dinner and treated ourselves to a nice cocktail after our traumatic journey.  We spoke to the nice, if somewhat stressed, lady running the place about our options for seeing the caves the next morning.  She told us we could either book a tour, around $50 each, or hire bikes and do it ourselves.  She seemed to think it would cost roughly the same to do it ourselves but were only going to take 2 bikes between the four of us and so it was working out quite a bit cheaper, that and it would be more fun on bikes.

Beryl arrived in Dong Hoi at some ridiculous hour of the morning and slept on a couch at our hostel.  We had breakfast and waited for our bikes to arrive but our scatterbrained hostess had forgotten to book our bikes the night before and so all that was left were semi-automatics.  None of us had ridden bikes with gears and so we were panicking a bit in the morning but the guy gave us a quick lesson around the block and off we set to see the longest and largest caves the world.  I drove for about 20 miles and then switched with Kay for a bit as my hands were getting a bit sore.  Once we arrived at the place where you get the boat into the longest cave we met some German guys who asked if we would like to share the cost of a boat with them. The boat took us down the river and then into the cave. It was really cool, they let us off inside the cave so that we could have a walk around.  We then walked out of the cave and met the boat so they could take us back up the river to where we started.  After having some lunch we realised that because of the bike fiasco in the morning along with the first cave taking longer than we thought to do, we now didn't have time to see paradise cave too.  It was ok though, we really enjoyed our day out on the bikes anyway.  

Our accomodation in Dong Hoi had the potential to be really good but they were so short staffed with it being Tët, that the service was appalling.  We waited well over an hour for our dinner to arrive and we were starting to get a bit tetchy as our night bus to Hanoi was due to arrive any minute.

Thankfully, our dinner did eventually arrive and so did our bus to Hanoi.

Nha Trang

We left HCMC on our first 'sleeper' bus along with Jess, one of the girls I had met on my Chu Chi tunnels tour. The sleeper buses in Vietnam are in no way as luxurious as the buses in Thailand, but they do have beds, kind of. You have a seat/pod which lies almost all the way back but they are built for short Vietnamese people and so if you are any taller than me (5"5) you will not be able to lie flat. I'm very fortunate, in that, I can generally sleep anywhere and so I did manage to get some sleep, waking up every few hours in order to reposition myself. Thankfully, we've now done so many of these buses that I am almost at pro at sleeping on them. 

We arrived quite early and Jess had read that we should be dropped off not far from our accommodation, so we set off in search of the place. When we finally found it, it wasn't far, but with heavy rucksacks, it felt far, but we had managed to book ourselves into two different hostels. They have two, close by to each other, but they were nice enough to allow us to change our booking so that the three of us could stay together. Having not had the best sleep in the world, we decided to spend the day on the beach. 

Our friend Rosie from home had recently moved to Vietnam and was currently sunning herself in Nha Trang. Myself, Kay and Rosie met up for drinks that night which was lovely. We can't manage to organise ourselves to see each other when we are both in Scotland but, put us on the other side of the world and somehow it works out! 

The next day, Kay, Jess and I went to a thermal spa. They had mineral mud baths where we caked ourselves in mud and then dried off in the sun. This was followed by a vigorous shower and then some time in the hot springs. The perfect place to spend a hangover and Valentine's Day. 

That night we went to an ice bar with the other girl in our 4-bed dorm room. As I'm sure you can imagine, it was freezing! Minus 10 degrees Celsius! We were given gloves, scarf, huge jacket and Uggs before we went in. The whole place was made of ice including the glasses. We only stayed long enough to have one drink and take some pictures, our noses would have fallen off if we stayed much longer! We had a few drinks at another bar after to warm up. 

We decided the next day to move to another hostel as we felt that ours was a bit on the small side. We decided between us on a hostel but when we arrived we had inadvertently booked ourselves into the only hostel smaller than our own. There was floor space for only two people in the room at a time, we had to go in in shifts. Our friend Beryl was arriving in Nha Trang that day, she had gone to Dalat for a couple of days while we were in Nha Trang. The four of us had a lazy day which consisted of, sunbathing, eating tiny burgers for dinner, then proceeding to eat a second dinner with dessert and then walking around the town to see all the lovely Tët decorations.  

The next day was spent on a 'booze cruise'.  The booze was severely lacking but we did get to spend some time at some nice islands and beaches. Jess, Beryl and I went snorkelling off one of the beaches while Kay went to do a scuba dive. She had been looking at some places in Nha Trang to do another dive and when they offered one on the booze cruise, for a scarily low price, she jumped at the chance.  When, finally, happy hour arrived, we were able to jump off the top of the boat into the water where there was a floating bar awaiting us. Jess very aptly described this as 'Mediocre Twenty Minutes' rather than 'Happy Hour'. It was still lots of fun jumping from the top deck of the boat. 

Once we had checked out the next morning, myself and Kay went to the beach so we could do some sunbathing while writing our postcards.  We walked back to the accommodation so that we could make a plan for the rest of our time in Vietnam and we hadn't been there long when Beryl arrived to pick up her bikini. She had been into one of the fancy hotels at the beach to use their toilet and she noticed that they had a pool on the ground level that no one was using. She was sure that the hotel was too big for the staff to know who stayed there and who didn't so, we grabbed our bikinis too and headed to the hotel with our best 'we belong here' faces at the ready.  She was right, no one batted an eyelid when we used their pool for an hour or so. 

Another sleeper bus, another destination...Hoi An, here we come! 

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)

After leaving Cambodia nice and early, we made it through the border without any dramas, and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) around lunch time.  We decided to book something to do for the next day and then go and see a nice park which was close by to our accommodation. The traffic in HCMC is absolutely mental! Cars have a 300% tax on them so everyone drives a scooter or motorbike.  With a population and size equivalent to London, but no underground, you can imagine the chaos.  The drivers just ignore the traffic lights and so what you have to do is, hold your hand out in a 'stop' motion, make eye contact, walk slowly and they'll just drive around you.  An unnerving experience the first few times to say the least, but we soon got used to it - a bit.

When we arrived at the park we were told that they were just shutting up for the day and that we were therefore not allowed in.  It was only early afternoon by this point but I could see that they were setting up for something inside.  With Tët (Vietnamese New Years) being just around the corner I figured it was probably something to do with that.  Avoiding crossing the road as much as possible, we made our way back to our accommodation, stopping in at a few shops on the way.  

The next morning we were booked in to do a tour of the Chu Chi tunnels. This was the underground network used by the north Vietnamese during the Vietnam war.  Kay, unfortunately, wasn't feeling very well that morning and so I went on the trip alone.  I met three lovely girls on the bus and ended up spending the day with them.  The trip was very informative and I learnt a lot about the Vietnam war that I didn't know before.  This wasn't difficult since I knew hee-haw before.  Our first stop before the tunnels had been a lacquer-wear factory where we got to see all the lovely lacquer things for sale in Vietnam being made.  It was interesting to see that they often use egg shell for the designs.  Once at the tunnels we were shown the hidden entrances which were tiny.  We were allowed to get in and have our picture taken, which we all duly did, apart from one lady, she was a bit on the larger side and when she asked if she could have a turn, an employee seemed to appear from no where and shout "no, no lady! Not for you!". I did feel a bit sorry for her but, he was right, there was no way on this planet she was going to fit in.  These holes were designed for tiny Vietnamese, not overweight westeners.  We were shown some of the booby traps that they had set for the Americans.  These were pretty awful, but I'm sure very effective.  Even with all the tourist stuff, the place was quite densely forested and it was quite easy to imagine how the opposition, especially those not from Vietnam, must have felt.  Not knowing if you next step would be your last.

Then came the fun bit! They have widened one of the tunnels by 50% to allow us 'large' westeners to experience crawling through.  Even with it being widened, they were still very small and very claustrophobic.  The tunnels around HCMC go on for around 75 miles, but we only went about twenty metres or so before the heat got the better of us and we surfaced for some fresh air.  I had read in a review on tripadvisor where the reviewer had said the highlight of their day had been when "a big fat American got stuck in the tunnel" and they all had to back out.  I kinda secretly wanted this to happen again while I was there.  

When back in HCMC, thankfully, Kay was feeling much better and so we decided to quickly go to the war memorial museum.  It wasn't something I thought i would be hugely interested in and so thought the hour we had would be enough.  What a mistake, there was so much to see and read there that we could have easily spent a few hours there.  The museum is very one sided and concentrated mostly on all the horrific things that the American / South Vietnamese troops did during the war.  It was quite upsetting to read some of the things, especially the effects that Agent Orange has had on the Vietnamese people since the war. This was one of the herbicide and defoliants used during the war, the chemical is still causing human mutations.  The U.S have only just recently agreed to partially fund the clean up needed after using this chemical, this came after decades of court proceedings.  This was not just a war crime and a crime against humanity, but also a crime against nature.  

That night, myself and Kay travelled to the other side of the city to get a 'chippy' from JJ's fish and chip shop.  When we finally found the place down some maze of an alleyway we were greeted by an English man who told us that they now only did take aways and had no where for us to sit.  We ordered our chips and went for a short walk to see a obscenely lit up church close by.  There were statues of angles with lit up halos.  We ventured back and collected our chips and rode back to our accommodation to enjoy them. Must say, they were definitely worth the trip! 

The next morning myself, Kay and two of the girls I'd met the day before all went on a day trip to the Mekong River.  Yes, this is the same river I spoke about in Cambodia. This river starts in China, and runs through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and finally ends in Vietnam.  We had a wonderful guide that day who gave us loads of advise for travelling in Vietnam.  The told us how to cross the road, closing your eyes and just walking is his method apparently, he also told us to make sure and take care of our belonging too as drive-by muggings are common, even more so since it was the run up to Tët.

Our first stop that morning was a typical cafe in suburban Vietnam.  Lots and lots of hammocks and not a table in site - heaven! The reason for this, he explained, is that many people do long journeys on their motorbikes and because they are quite uncomfortable, they need to stop every couple of hour or so.  This is where the hammock cafes come in, they can have a quick snooze and a coffee and set of again.

We then went to a pagoda which wasn't very impressive on the inside but they did have some huge Buddha statues outside.  One laughing Buddha and one standing.  We took a boat to Turtle island for some lunch before stopping at a coconut candy factory where we got to see them make the candies and also got to taste them while they were still lovely, hot and fresh.  While we were at the factory our guide produced a huge snake from a cage and we all had a shot at holding it.  It was much much heavier than it looked!

It was there that we got onto small long boats, in fours, and went on a short trip down the Mekong river, in the obligatory rice hats of course.  Our tour ended with us having some honey tea, fruit and getting to listen to some awful traditional Vietnamese music. A fantastic day out and all for only about $7! Bargain! 

That night Kay took the plunge and bought a rucksack to replace her enormous bag which now had a hole in it.  We didn't have time after dinner to go through all her belonging and throw stuff out so the empty bag came along with us on our first proper sleeper bus to Nha Trang.  We had slept on night buses while being away but these ones in Vietnam actually have beds! Not the comfiest beds on the planet I must say but I huge improvement on the upright seats we'd slept on previously. Next stop, Nha Trang for some beach time and to hopefully catch up with our long lost friend Rosie! 

Phnom Penh

We arrived at our accommodation and did the usual walk around to get our bearings. We had lunch at a restaurant where they didn't even have a menu...it was noodles or rice. We were just looking for some fuel rather than anything hugely exciting and so both settled for fried rice with vegetables. We had read that there were a few sky bars in Phnom Penh and so decided we would get the glad-rags on and have some cocktails. We picked a bar at the top of the tallest building in Phnom Penh, and certainly weren't disappointed with the view! We had a couple of cocktails and then made our way down to the river front for some dinner.  A few more cocktails ensued at our hostel until we were thrown out at closing time and made (twisted our arms, honest) to go to another bar around the corner which was open later. 

The next day we got a tuk tuk to take us to the killing fields. There had been some to see near Siem Reap but I'd been told these ones were better, I'm not sure better is the right word for somewhere like this, maybe more educational.  The Killing Fields are a number of sites all over Cambodia where the Khmer Rouge killed over one million people in secret after the civil war. They were mostly killing highly educated people like doctors, lawyers and teachers. They also targeted anyone thought to have any connection to the previous government. Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge was described as the Hitler of Cambodia. If you were targeted, the would also kill all of your family to ensure that there would be no revenge on them, this included new born children. The place was horrific but also a very peaceful place to be as everyone was silent while waking around. There is a monument which has the skulls and other bones which were discovered there on display. It's crazy to think that all this happened only about 35 years ago. 

We went to another NGO, Daughter's of Cambodia, for lunch after the killing fields. This one was for women and men fleeing the sex industry.  A huge amount of girls are sold by their families into the sex trade every year. This NGO provides over 100 woman and men with jobs and training every year. http://daughtersofcambodia.org - if you fancy having a wee look at what they do. 

It was a bit of a whirl wind visit to Cambodia but the only thing we missed out on doing were the beaches, and we'd spent so long at the beach in Thailand that we were a bit beached out! Next stop, Viet Nam! 

 

Kratie - Cambodia

We left Ban Lung in the morning for Kratie. The journey didn't seem as bad this time as it had the night we arrived in Ban Lung. I think we must have had a mini bus with zero suspension that day. We arrived in Kratie about lunch time and decided to go to the same restaurant we'd been at for dinner during the stop on that awful journey. When we were there previously we'd seen that they also have rooms on offer so thought we would check them out. A man followed us all the way there, telling us he knew nice places that we could stay. Regardless of how many times we told him we neither needed or wanted his help, he still followed us. Wanting some unearned commission I'm sure. In an attempt to lose him we told him we would be having lunch at the restaurant before we did anything else. He decided he would just sit and wait for us and eventually the guest house caved and gave him commission even though we hadn't seen the room yet or decided if we would definitely stay there. 

After lunch, we looked at the room and did indeed decide we would stay there for a couple of nights. We spent the day walking around, getting our bearings, and went down to the river to watch the sun come down. We booked a trip to see the Irrawaddy Dolphins for the next day and also booked our next bus to Phnom Penh for the day after. We went to a nice NGO for dinner that night. They were training young Cambodians to work in all aspects of catering and tourism. Whoever was teaching them did a fantastic job, it was by far the best service we've had since leaving Scotland. The food wasn't amazing but the service definitely made up for it. 

The next morning we got a tuk tuk about 30km away to the Mekong River where we rented a long boat and went out for about an hour or so to see the Dolphins. The Irrawaddy Dolphins are endangered, there are only about 150 of them left in the world and 70 of those are in there in the Mekong River. We saw a few close up at the beginning but then only from far away after that. The guy on our boat was very good at pointing them out to us. We didn't mind that we didn't get to see them up close as all the money from the trips goes towards the conservation of the Dolphins and that's all that rally matters anyway. 

After our time was up on the river, we asked our tuk tuk driver to take us a wee bit further along the river to a place we had seen when we arrived the day before. It was such a beautiful wee spot with buildings on stilts down on the river. 

When we got back we went searching for the post office so we could send some post cards and then went for dinner. I had one of my cheapest beers that night, about 50p for draft Angkor. 

We were leaving for Phnom Penh the next day and really glad to be leaving our accommodation. We stupidly paid up front for two nights but hugely regretted it as the guesthouse obviously had some issues with the plumbing as there was a rancid smell in the place on the second day. Note to selves - don't pay in advance again. 

Ban Lung - Cambodia

We left for our trip to Ban Lung around 6am after waiting an hour for the bus to collect us, we should have left at 5am.  We were told that we would be in Ban Lung for around 3pm-ish.  After being on the bus for what felt like an eternity, we were told to get off along with one other westener, it was already about 3pm by this point.  We were then asked to follow some guy who took us to a minibus.  The driver of the minibus didn't seem very pleased to be taking us to Ban Lung and the other lady to Kratie, but we were soon clambering over goodness knows what to get into the back seat.  We drove for another two hours (in the wrong direction) to Kratie to drop the lady off.  We were then told we would need to get onto another bus to get us to Ban Lung.  This one wasn't leaving until 6.30pm so we went for some dinner.  We discussed just calling it a day and finding some accommodation in Kratie since we were planning to visit there anyway, but since we had already spent the whole day travelling we decided just to keep on trucking. We walked back round to the bus station for 6.30pm but were told that the bus wasn't full yet and that they might not leave at all unless more people came. Thankfully, there was enough people wanting to head that way and we set off at 7pm.  The road to Ban Lung was the worst I've ever been on, it didn't help that there was zero suspension in the minibus.  After being jiggled about for another couple of hours, a lot of the passengers got off.  We then managed to lie down on the seats and get some sleep.  We finally arrived in Ban Lung at 1am! Nine and a half hours later than we were told we would.  After having to wake someone up to let us into the accommodation we brushed our teeth and hit the sack.

We had a bit of a lie in the next morning as we were both understandably shattered from our hell journey the day before.  We had a late breakfast at our accommodation and then decided to rent some bicycles and head to the crater lake which was about 5km away.  We were given "good bikes" for our journey but about two meters in my chain fell off which almost made me land in the ditch.  Back I went to get myself another "good bike".  The first part of the journey was quite flat but it wasn't long before we were heading up our first hill.  This was when we realised just how "good" the bikes were.  Mine felt as though it was stuck in the highest gear and Kay's in first! You can't really complain when they cost $1 to rent for the full day.  The road to the lake was full of steep hills and we actually had to get off our bikes a few times to push! Showing our fitness level here, or lack there of.  Once we made it to the lake we went for a wee walk around some of it.  They think the lake was created by a meteor as it is a perfect circle. We decided to jump into the lake to cool down after our cycle.  We cycled back to our accommodation and had some dinner.  We had spoken with a lady via email about booking a jungle trek for the following day/night.  She came down to our accommodation to speak to us about our options. She was the loveliest lady and we decided we would do a two day/one night trek where we would stay with a family in the jungle. We spent the night packing and had an early night in preparation for our big trek the next day.

We were picked up early the next morning for our trek but ended up sitting about a bit while they organised everything.  There were people of all ages going on treks that day, even a 70ish year old woman who was doing a 5 day(!) trek! Good on her, I hope I'm that fit at 70.  We were the only ones doing two days and so we set off with our guide in the oldest car on the planet.  At one point he had to put down my window so, pulled over, got a wrench out and used that as a handle, since there was no longer one there.  He later told us the car was a gift from his god father and so he couldn't get rid of it.  I suspect he spends all his earnings on rice wine but maybe it truly is sentimentality that's making him hold onto the old banger.  We drove for a short while and our guide pulled over to buy some red bull and some surgical masks for Kay and I. I, being a diabetic, obviously declined the red bull but the surgical mask came in very handy with the really dusty roads.  He was calling it red snow as the dust was everywhere, including a thick layer on every roof.  We arrived at a small village to start our trek and pick up our ranger.  We needed to have one ranger, who knew the jungle, and one English speaking guide with us.  The ranger had a huge backpack with him and when he weight it, it was 19kg(!!). We had our own things, sleeping bag liner, flip flops, bikini, camera etc, our hammock for the night and 3 litres of water.  They probably only weighed about 5kg max and that was more than enough.  I have no idea how he walked so far with such a heavy bag.  The guides bag was around 13kg too! We walked until lunch time, taking short breaks every 45 minutes or so to have water and a quick sit down.  The trek wasn't particularly hard but the 35 degree heat was a killer.  We had a filling lunch of eggs and bread and then set off again.  We had two dogs with us the whole time too, one puppy and one slightly older dog.  They probably did ten times the distance we did that day as they were constantly running ahead and then coming back again.  We had to walk over some fallen trees a couple of times to get over some rivers which was a bit scary.  We didn't see a huge amount of wildlife but we did see a massive poisonous spider...eeekk! 

After lunch we were told by our guide that he had received a phone call from the village we were meant to be staying at, they told him that they were having a celebration that night and they didn't want any outsiders there.  He also explained that there would be a lot of drinking at the celebration which would make it difficult for him to translate for us.  We weren't 100% sure we fully believed him but felt we had no option but to agree to changing the plan, and sleeping in the jungle instead. I wasn't overly bothered as this had been my preferred option anyway.  We just decided between us that we would speak to the lovely lady we booked with when we got back.  We paid more to do the home stay and so if we weren't getting to do it, we wanted some of our money back.

We carried on our trek for another few hours until we arrived at our camp for the night.  It was a beautiful wee spot next to a river with pools.  We went for a quick dip to cool down before dinner.  It was then I realised why our rangers bag was so heavy.  He started pulling out pots, pans, knives, lots of vegetables and meat, like a mary poppins bag.  While we were doing our trek, our guide made us some lovely cups out of bamboo and so we had some (very strong) rice wine aka whisky while we chopped up some vegetables.  Our ranger made us a beautiful meal of rice, vegetables and chicken and also a vegetable soup which he made by putting all the ingredients into a piece of bamboo and put it over the fire.  He explained that you didn't need to add any water as it would come out from the bamboo.  We set up our hammocks after dinner and had an early night, which was a good thing as the temperature dropped quite drastically through the night and myself and Kay were both waking up every hour or so during the night with the cold.  

The next morning we woke to some lovely hot coffee and breakfast.  Our breakfast consisted of noodles, vegetables, lizards eggs and frogs (I didn't partake)! Lovely! We set off after breakfast for another day of hiking.  We arrived at the rangers village around lunch time and had lunch and a refreshing cold beer with them.  It was here that we left the ranger and the beautiful dogs.  Myself, Kay and the guide left in the car and went to another village so that he could show us a bit of village life.  

Once we had returned to Ban Lung we collected our rucksacks and spoke the lady who owns the company with her husband.  She refunded us straight away, without us having to ask, once we told her that we hadn't been able to do the trek we had originally booked.  Although we couldn't understand what she was saying to our guide, we could tell that she was furious with him.  So, I think our suspicions were correct and he just couldn't be bothered taking us to the home stay.  We both thoroughly enjoyed or trek none the less and our time in Ban Lung.  We moved accommodation that night to a slightly nicer hotel as, although the other one was very cheap, it was also very noisy.  We just wanted somewhere clean and quite to rest our heads and our legs for our journey to Kratie the following day.

Siem Reap

Siem reap

We made our way down to the fake 7/11 at the bottom of our street to wait for the bus to Cambodia. Once we had collected everyone, we made the short journey to the pier. Unfortunately the ferry we were supposed to be on was already full by the time we got there and so we had to wait for the next one. Thankfully, it was only a 30 minute wait. We had a quick look around the shops but it was just tourist tat so we decided to have a cup of tea to pass the time. The tea in Cambodia is rank, but for whatever reason we just don't seem to learn and continue to order the weak tea with condensed milk...bleugh! I think we have this unlikely hope that one day they'll give us something which resembles the tea from home. The ferry didn't take long and we were soon on mainland Thailand heading for the border. As I mentioned in my previous post, there was a scam going on at this crossing, but thankfully we were well read up and ready to take them on. The bus pulled into a small restaurant under the pretence that our tickets needed to be checked, and that another bus was coming to take us to the border. We sat for a while and ordered some lunch. One by one people were taken away from where we were sitting, they were told that they were now ready to go to the border. When I went inside the restaurant to order some water to have with our lunch, I saw everyone who had "left" sitting inside. I figured this must be the part of the scam where they tell you that they need to arrange your visa for $50. When I got back there was only myself and Kay, and one other, an American, still waiting. We tried to tell him what we knew about the scam but he didn't seem very keen to go against the status quo. Next, it was our turn to go through. We were taken into a small room where we were asked to show our ticket and passports. We were then told that we would also need to purchase our visas before leaving for the border. We told them we had already organised E-visas for ourselves (which was a lie) and when they asked to see them, we politely but firmly told them that they didn't need to see them and that we would show the officials once we got to the border. We were bundled out of there very quickly and put in a taxi to the border. I tried to go back to speak to the American so that he could do they same but they wouldn't let me, even when I said I needed the toilet. They didn't want us to speak to anyone else and potentially ruin their whole days takings.  We were dumped at the border and made our way through Thai immigration, past no-mans land and into the Cambodian immigration office. Here we encountered part two of the scam. This is where the greedy officials want a back hander for just doing their job. He wanted the $30 fee for the visa but also 100 baht. This is only about £2, but if they are taking this from everyone that passes through that border everyday they'll be making a small fortune. They showed us a scrap of paper with " Fee - $30 + 100B " written on it. We stuck to our guns and pointed to the official sign above our heads which showed the correct price. He then pointed to his scrap of paper again to which we responded with "what is the 100B for?" This continued on loop for a couple of minutes until he gave in and walked away. We then handed our passports to the gentleman behind the counter and waited for them to be processed.  We had read that if you refuse to pay the bride, they keep your passports for a long time and make you wait and wait. Luckily for us, they obviously weren't in the mood to play games and we got passports back in about 5 minutes. We then needed to queue to have our pictures and finger prints taken, this was where we met up with everyone from our bus that morning. They all told us how they had been made to pay $50 for their visa.  Some, who had also read about the scam, paid as they were worried about onward travel from the border if they didn't. Another long bus journey and questionable food from a restaurant in the middle of no where, we finally made it to Siem Reap. The next day was spent getting our bearings and deciding what to do with our time in Siem Reap. We took a walk to the infamous Pub Street, had some lovely pizza for dinner and booked a tour of Angkor Wat with a tuk tuk driver for the next day. We had to be up ridiculously early the next morning as we wanted to see the sunrise at Angkor wat. This meant being up at 4.30am and collected from our accommodation at 5am. Our driver dropped us off about twenty past and we made our way to Angkor wat to try and get a good spot for the sunrise. Sunrise wasn't until about 6.30am so we had to wait around for quite a while. We did have a good spot though but unfortunately the sun rise wasn't very spectacular that morning. We spent a couple of hours waking around after sunrise and then our diver collected us again about 9am. While we were walking around inside Angkor Wat we had insense trusted into our hands and before we knew it we were being blessed and asked to make a donation. Kay went into her purse and took out some small bills. He looked horrified but it wasn't until later that we realised just how little we'd given him....about 3p! Still getting used to the money here. He then took us to Angkor Thom and Bayon where we spent our time making funny pictures with all the carved faces. One Frenchman wailed behind us "No Madame! Not the nose!" as I pretended to stick my finger up one of their noses for a picture. Next stop was Ta Prohm temple which I think was my favourite as it's very much untouched at the moment. There are still tree roots strangling the walls which made up the temple. Parts of Tomb Raider were filmed at this temple and some of the others too.  We went for dinner at a small place along the road from our accommodation and both had a very tasty vegetable curry. It's my birthday!!!! Kay made me go and get my own breakfast from down stairs, can you believe it, on my birthday! While I was down stairs though, she fashioned a cake and candles for me (12 cupcakes and 1 huge candle). After having some cup cakes as a second breakfast we went across the road to a nice hotel where we could lounge by the pool and have cocktails. I had decided that for my birthday night out we would do an organised pub crawl. Neither of us had ever done one before and I wanted to do something a bit different. We dragged ourselves away from the poolside and went for dinner to line our stomachs. Faces on, we got a tuk tuk to 'X bar' which is just off Pub Street and where our pub crawl would begin. We played a game of beer pong with some lovely Canadian girls before all the madness began. After a few warm up games and drinks at X Bar, around 70 of us headed off to the next pub. Drinks were only $1 but, as I keep encountering, there wasn't any sugar free mixers. The problem was easily solved by running across the road to buy my own mixer from the convenience store. At one of the bars later, Kay asked for "just vodka" for my drink and was handed a full glass of vodka! The spirits are cheaper than the mixers here so they are very free flowing with the alcohol! Had a lovely night meeting lots of new people. Definitely one birthday I will never forget. The next couple of days were very uneventful as I had food poisoning which in turn was leaving me very run down. Sore throat, swollen glands, ulcers, the works! Poorly girl.  Kay was very kind and went to the pharmacy to get me some medicine and in two days I was well enough for our next journey. We were headed to the North-East to do some trekking!