Waz and Gavs on Tour

After a rainy week on the coast of Cambodia we headed to Ho Chi Minh CIty in Vietnam and were greeted by glorious sunshine but miserable people! Ok, they weren't all that bad, but it was just a bit of shock in comparison to all the other South-east Asian countries, where everyone would at least smile at you when they stared. But the Vietnamese seem to be far more used to tourists, and so were far less friendly- we were even refused service at a street food stall on our last night because the owner "has a problem with foreigners"!!

On the other hand, Vietnam is one of the most beautiful countries either of us has ever been to- our favourite country on this trip so far! We went to 8 different places and so managed to see huge cities, beach resorts (being dominated by Russian tourists), quaint towns and some incredible scenery.

Vietnam is very well known for its food, and it was so good to be able to have something new practically everyday and it always be amazing so good in fact we decided to splash out 25 quid each on a cooking course where we learnt to cook some favourites and also had unlimited alcohol and use of a swimming pool for the day.

"Ok everyone you have a 5 minute break before we start cooking"

Our first stop as we said was Ho Chi Minh CIty (formerly Saigon), where we had a good few history lessons where we learnt about the Vietnam War (or American War as it is known in Vietnam). In the War Remnants Museum, which was extremely interesting even if it was incredibly biased. Wayne spent such a long time looking and playing on the old tanks and helicopters, that when we were looking around the museum it was announced that it was closing. Before we had time to say OK, the lights had been switched off! This is the standard sort of business of Vietnam.

We had some amazing moments in Vietnam.

Shooting an AK47 and crawling through the Cu Chi Tunnels built and used by the Viet Cong in the jungle during the war...

We played on the Sand dunes in Mui Ne....

Joined hundreds of Vietnamese families on their holidays in the highlands in Dalat, and on the beaches of Nha Trang and Hoi An...

Rode a motorbike (yes Keelin rode a motorbike! Sorry Mumma Gavs- and I can imagine Ellen (and Elaine) having a heart attack) from Hoi An to Hue over the Hai Van Pass...

The bike was a far better mode of transport to the sleeper bus!

Cruising through Halong Bay admiring the limestone islands....

"Buy somethinnnngggg?"

Meeting up with Dan and Eleanor for a day of sightseeing and a night of tour in Hanoi...

Just chilling

MASSIVE CONGRATULATIONS to James and Danielle, on both getting 1sts!!!! The true Brains of Britain as Grandma Gavaghan would say :-)

We have now arrived in India, and so far we can say...its different!!

xxxxxxx

After hearing lots of people big up Cambodia we were really excited to head onto our 6th country. Not only is it a beautiful country, but there is a huge amount of history here that neither of us knew anything about, and loads of bloody annoying animals.

We headed out of Laos, deciding to bus it through Thailand to get to the west of Cambodia rather than down through the south. We had an overnight stop in a small town in Thailand where as always we dined in style among the cockroaches at a local street stall. Thankfully it was after we had finished our dinner that the rat came out of the pipe beside us to get the leftovers.

Although the Cambodian people in general are lovely, there are a lot of del-boys, and on reaching the border we were the targets of 3 attempted scams within the space of 3 hours. Only one succeeded.

Our first stop in Cambodia was Siem Reap- the town nearest to Angkor Wat:

Its a site of temple ruins basically, but it is a really incredible. We cycled it all- about 40km- OLSG training!

Whilst walking through Angkor Wat admiring the ruins, Wayne thought he was being robbed of our plastic bag, only to turn around and find that a fat monkey was tearing out of his hands. Wayne was petrified- and in hindsight his face was hilarious!!! The monkey tore apart the plastic bag, ripped one of the rain coats, and opened and drank from the bottle of water! When the fatty was satisfied there was no food in the bag he sauntered off. Wayne was pretty smug that he had brought a spare plastic bag collected up our stuff and headed off. But fatty came running after Wayne again!!! Wayne sprinted off and was chased for about 100m before losing the monkey- all the time Keelin was shouting after him to please not get rabies!

From Siem Reap we headed to Battambang and then the capital Phnom Penh where we learnt about Cambodia's history. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge (The Cambodian Communist party) took over Cambodia and with Pol Pot as the leader, had a mission to create a peasant-dominated agrigarian cooperative. They drove everyone out of the cities and forced them to work in slavery on farms in the countryside. Besides this from 1975 to 1979 the Khmer Rouge killed 2 million Cambodians who threatened their position. These were intellectuals (all doctors and teachers), people they thought to be intellectuals (anyone who could speak another language, people with fairer skin, people who wore glasses), and people of other nationalities such as any Vietnamese and Chinese. Battambang and Phnom Penh gave us the opportunity to visit the sites of mass genocide, mass graves and one of the most famous prisons, that was originally a school.

Old school used as the prison S-21

Cells in S-21

Some of the skulls found in the mass graves at the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh

We headed to Sihanoukville on the coast for some R&R, but due to some UK-style weather didn’t see a great deal of the beach so we decided to head to Kampot which is famous for two things Black pepper and a spooky abandoned hill top resort called Bokor hill station.

Bokor Hill Station...

Kampot Town

Us on the bamboo train...

Dismantling the bamboo train because we met one coming the other way

When we got to our last stop before the Vietnam border, Kep, we had a day of brilliant sunshine so trekked around the national park-fighting off lizards, centipedes, snakes, wild monkeys and a pack of 4 angry dogs that were protecting a group of nuns!