Siem Reap

Siem Riep is a very touristy town, but it has every reason to be since it’s just about as close as you can get to the temples of Angkor without a time machine. It certainly came in handy that it had one of those ubiquitous Irish pubs, since it was St. Patrick’s day and we were in serious need of some green beer. We also appreciated the profusion of air conditioning given the 100 degree heat, so we really can’t complain about these conveniences of home.

In reality, you would need weeks, maybe years, to properly explore the temples of Angkor and all of their winding caverns and passageways. We had only three days, so we hired a tuk tuk driver to make the most of our time. We started out visiting the temples around Angkor Wat and then travelled further afield.

Not surprisingly, Angkor Wat was a highlight. It is the largest religious structure in the world and represents the pinnacle of Khmer architectural design. The carved bas-relief murals that line the halls are intricate and evocative and the five central towers reaching skyward are truly magnificent, especially at dawn or dusk when they light up like shimmering gold. But, Angkor is so much more than Angkor Wat. The story that unravels as you visit different sites gives you a much greater appreciation for the complexity and resilience of the Khmers than any single structure could.

The first thing that struck us was the sheer magnitude of the ruins. Each consecutive king wanted to honor the gods anew and commissioned a state temple to be built, thus moving the center of the kingdom over and over again. Our awe for the scope and power of the civilization was compounded when we contemplated the fact that while only religious structures remain, thousands of people lived in impermanent wooden settlements radiating out from the main temples at one point in time.

The temples exhibit an amazing diversity of styles. You can see the progression through the ages of different building techniques, materials and decorative themes, with each generation bringing something innovative to the traditional design. Another transformation you notice is a shift in religious beliefs. The Khmer’s were heavily influenced by their contact with Indian traders who came through the area and originally adopted a mix of Hindu and local deities, but later were converted by Buddhist teachings. In the end, sentiments swung back to Hinduism, evidenced by the thousands of Buddah images that were defaced or altered into less controversial figures.

Some of the temples were impressive due to their size or stature, such as the pyramid-shaped “mountain temples” of Pre Rup and Ta Keo, which were intended to emulate the sacred Mount Meru. Others were notable because of the uniqueness of the decoration. Two of our favorite structures, the Bayon and Banteay Srei, were actually quite modest in size.

The Bayon was built out of a cluster of towers carved with faces on all four sides. The faces evoke a strange sense of mystery and wonder, especially when navigating the maze-like inner chambers. The Bayon also has some fine bas-relief carvings portraying great battles and other historical events, as well as more obscure images from Hindu mythology.

Twenty-some kilometers from Angkor Wat is Banteay Srei, which has the most exquisite reliefs of all the temples we visited. It was not built by a king, but rather a counselor, and appears almost miniature in scale compared to other temples. Its beauty lies in the fact that nearly all of its surfaces are carved with rich and enigmatic images – the lion god Narasimha clawing at an enemy, a multi-headed demon shaking Mount Kailasa, Krishna and his brother firing arrows to stop the rain. It is truly a creative and artistic masterpiece.

Complimenting the splendor of the temples themselves are the dramatic landscapes in which they were built. Many temples were built on hills to provide sweeping views of the surrounding area, and most contained some element of water for dramatic effect, such as a moat or lake. The environment continues to shape them into the present day, with trees having invaded many of the structures, winding and wrapping their way around the stonework. While some of the temples have been restored, others have been left in this state of decay, providing a fantastical backdrop for movies like Tomb Raider.

We absolutely loved our time in Angkor and would definitely put it in our list of “must-see” places in the world.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is ripe with paradox. Today it is the capital of one of the world’s poorer countries, but its museum holds the treasures of one of the most prolific civilizations in history. Tiny alleyways strewn with garbage and home to orphaned children cross avenues lined with gourmet chocolate shops and bakeries frequented by tourists and international aid workers. The recent past has been plagued by horrible violence and suffering, yet its people seem to face the days ahead with humor and a strange sense of optimism.

Just about the only thing that is consistent about this place is the confusion it generates in its visitors. Your only choice is to confront the bad and embrace the good. We started with the bad and found ourselves face to face with the legacy of a woefully misguided revolution.

The Khmer Rouge, an ultra-Maoist regime that sprung up partly in reaction to the US bombardment of the Cambodian countryside during with the Vietnam War, took over Phnom Penh in 1975. Under the direction of a tyrant named Pol Pot, anyone deemed to be educated was seen as an enemy to the regime and slated for execution in the hopes of returning the country to its agrarian roots.

The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek now serves as a memorial to the victims of the Khmer Rouge. Set in a quiet and seemingly peaceful setting is a tall glass stupa filled with the skulls of thousands of people whose lives where ended there. More subtle reminders of the genocide are shallow indentations in the ground, mass graves where bodies were found, and random piles of decaying clothing.

Perhaps even more powerful was our visit to the Tuol Sleng Museum, a former high school that was used to imprison and torture victims prior to them being sent to execution sites like the one at Choeung Ek. The pictures of mangled, half-dead bodies that were taken when the city was liberated by the Vietnamese in 1979 would turn anyone’s stomach, and intake photos of incarcerated men, women and children posted among tiny cells converted from classrooms were absolutely heart-wrenching to look at given the knowledge that only a handful of them survived.

Many children were orphaned as a result of the murderous campaign and a variety of programs have been developed to address the ongoing challenges. A good example is a restaurant we dined at named Friends that educates and trains street children to work in the service industry. We also met a young woman involved in a variety of different projects, including teaching free classes on the traditional Apsara dance form, which was nearly lost as a result of the Khmer Rouge’s efforts to eradicate all things artistic.

Phnom Penh is clearly a very intense place, but it has positive points as well. The Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda are glorious remnants of the Khmer kingdom before it fell into decline, while the National Museum holds thousands of archaeological treasures from Angkor. The city also has some great Art Deco architecture, like the Central Market, which thankfully survived Pol Pot’s destruction. Phnom Penh is gradually coming into its own as a modern center of commerce and culture as well, and has a busting riverfront with cafes and restaurants and some fun nightspots where you can get your groove on with a truly international crowd.

We leave with a heavy heart, but wish the city and its people well on the road to recovery.

Mekong Delta to Cambodia

We said goodbye to Sue and left Phu Quoc Island a few days later for the Mekong Delta. Since we had been flying from city to city, this was our first experience with local transport and we suddenly realized why several people we met in Thailand had warned us that “everyone in Vietnam tries to rip you off”. We were overcharged for a motorbike ride to the so-called bus station, a derelict gas station where we found two rickety old buses and several people colluding to charge us four times the local fare while our motorbike drivers waited to receive a commission. We discussed the price for about an hour when some other tourists showed up. With greater leverage we were able to get the price down to a more reasonable (albeit still inflated price) and at last were on the road to Chao Doc, the last city before reaching the Cambodian border.

The Mekong Delta is a beautiful area, with millions of people living along an intricate network of waterways. Chao Doc is a good example of the colorful local communities that have cropped up here. It has a lively market, lots of street restaurants and of course, a few requisite cafes. It also has a great vegetarian restaurant, where we got to try the veg-friendly version of several local dishes. Yum!

As you walk down the narrow alley ways toward the river, you come across small wooden shacks on stilts and then finally huts that are actually floating on the water. From the outside these places look very modest (in fact, many look like they might collapse any minute…), but you looks can be deceiving – one held an internet café, another a set of pool tables and more than one featured big screen TVs. Clearly the locals have gotten creative in order to expand this prime waterfront real estate.

We took the Mekong River up to the Cambodian border and crossed the border posts by boat. The Cambodian side of the border provided similar scenes of life in the Delta – shacks on stilts, rice paddies, and fishermen – but things looked a bit more neglected and noticeably less colorful, giving the you the sense that we were entering a country that hasn’t benefited as much as its neighbors from the recent economic growth in the region. We continued on to Phnom Penh, catching glimpses of the city’s former Khmer glory from the river as we arrived.

Phu Quoc Island

Oh Phu Quoc, how we love thee. Let me count the ways….

First, we love your beautiful blue waters and gently lapping waves swimming with the likes of techno-colored cuttlefish in love.

Second, we love your long sandy beaches - the ones that we can fall out of our beds onto, as well as those that are on the far reaches of the island and provide an escape from everyone and everything.

Third, we love your selection of cheap restaurants serving up delicious fresh seafood, French bread and giant fish bowls of tropical colored elixir.

Fourth, we love your massage ladies, available any time of day to rub out that last molecule of stress or anxiety (or touch up your pedicure) for a mere $4 an hour.

Fifth, we love your winding, potholed roads and the fact that you can rent a motorbike from pretty much any local you can flag down with for a pittance to explore your green mountainous interior, pass by your fragrant peppercorn fields and, of course, to reach your remote, secluded beaches.

Sixth, we love your iced coffees, delicious every time, whether served up by the ramshackle hut on the beach, the local joint furnished with lawn chairs or sitting on the veranda of the one four-star hotel on the island.

Seventh, we love that you have your own special breed of dog that boldly flaunts a mohawk along its spine. (We especially love the puppies that play in the surf!)

Eight, we love your famous fish sauce factory – or at least the fresh and delicious cuisine that you season all over the world.

Ninth, we love your lively market and the fascinating scenes that play out there every day, like the young girl laughing as she learns to end the life of a squirming fish by bashing its head with end of a large cleaver or Sue trying to navigate her motorbikes through the throngs of shoppers without hitting anyone.

Tenth, we love that you entertained us for ten full days – the longest we’ve manage to stay anywhere on this trip yet! What a perfect place to unwind and recuperate.

Ho Chi Min City (AKA Saigon)

Saigon is quite a different place than its northern cousin, Hanoi. While Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam in a political sense, Saigon is undoubtedly the commercial center of the country. It’s big and modern, with cosmopolitan cafes and restaurants lining its boulevards and a busy lilt reminiscent of the western powers that held sway here for so many years. It’s also steamy and hot compared to the cool, crisp air in the north – a bit of a shock to the system.

Jen was stuck in bed nursing her knee, but Gil and Sue teamed up together to explore Saigon. We stayed in Pham Ngu Lao, the U.S. military enclave turned backpackers ghetto, which is lined with cheap eats and street side “bars” serving up beer in plastic jugs. From there, it was a short walk to the city’s best cultural and art museums, as well as a few nice parks – a welcome respite from the motorbike clogged streets.

As with Hanoi, there are many sites that are historically significant to the Vietnam War. The Reunification Palace (originally built as South Vietnam’s Presidential Palace) marks the location where the Communist tanks plied into the city on the day Saigon surrendered in 1975. It has been left exactly as it was on that day. Another reminder of the country’s troubled history is the War Remnants Museum, which documents the atrocities of the war in heartbreaking realism, including photographs of victims of the war and children born long afterward with defects as a result of Agent Orange and other chemicals used by the US military.

Sue and Gil also took a trip out to the Chu Chi tunnels, part of the infamous network of tunnels that reached all the way to the Cambodian border and allowed the communists to maintain control over the rural areas outside of Saigon. Guided by a former Viet Cong soldier who was clearly proud of the fact that he had a hand in defeating a global super power like the USA, they patiently listened to intricate (and often uncomforting) explanations of booby traps used to capture US soldiers and then filed into the passageways to experience the claustrophobia first hand. They passed on the opportunity to shoot off a machine gun though – the potential liability of a per-bullet pricing system just seemed too great…

Hoi An

Vietnam is an incredibly long country. Since our buddy Sue only had a couple of weeks there, we indulged in the luxury of a few plane rides that cut trips that would normally take a two of days down to two hours. One of these flights was from Hanoi to the ancient city of Hoi An on the central coast.

Hoi An is one of those places that is so incredibly quaint you feel as if you’ve found yourself in a replica at Disney Land rather than the real thing. Having been named a Unesco World Heritage site a few years back, the local population has gone out of their way to preserve the unique architecture and beauty of this city that sits unassumingly besides the Thu Bon River.
Mingling with the Chinese and European influences seen in other parts of Vietnam, Hoi An has a strong Japanese influence, and the dark teak homes are interspersed with ornate temples, 19th century public halls and even a Japanese-style covered bridge. Many of the buildings have been converted into lovely cafes and restaurants and we spent many days enjoying French pastries, Vietnamese coffees and local delicacies, such as the “white rose” shrimp dumplings and cao lau flat noodles floating in a special broth made specially from water procured from the famous Bale Well.

One of Sue’s co-workers, Bao (who is Vietnamese) happened to be traveling in the country at the same time and he generously explained to us the finer points of Vietnamese culture, such as having a case of beer delivered to your table upon being seated! He also took us out to an amazing seafood dinner, which was one of the culinary highlights of our time in South East Asia.

Hoi An is almost as famous for its main trade as it is for its architecture. With hundreds of tailoring shops and locally crafted silk, no visit would be complete unless you walk away with at least one piece of clothing perfectly customized to your dimensions. But, cheap tailored clothes are kind of like potato chips – bet you can’t order just one! Of course, we stocked up. (Thanks, Sue, for lugging it all home!)

There are also some interesting sights nearby Hoi An, including the famous and beautiful China Beach and the jungle ruins of Mai Son. Both featured prominently in the Vietnam War, the latter when the US suspected it to be a hiding place for the Vietcong and bombed it almost into complete destruction. Unfortunately, on the way to catch the bus to Mai Son, I got hit by a truck and was slammed to the ground - hard! The egg sandwich in my hand splattered all over the windshield and I was suddenly surrounded by worried Vietnamese women petting my hair and rubbing strange smelling oils on me.

Remember that terrible fortune from a few weeks back? Apparently, running across the street without looking was not the right move… but, actually, I was pretty lucky – a sprained knee and some other scrapes and bruises were the only injuries and it could have been much worse. And now we have an excuse to spend more time lying around the beach!

Halong Bay

We left Hanoi and headed east to Halong Bay for an overnight boat trip to take in this spectacular region, which has aptly been designated a Unesco World Heritage site. The drive was tiring, but it gave us the opportunity to take in the surrounding region. The rice paddies were full of farmers carefully planting individual shoots rice in what appeared to be an amazingly labor intensive process to grow this nation’s staple food source. We also passed thousands of people on motorbikes and we were constantly amazed at the cargo, be it complete families, oversized parcels or baskets full of livestock.

When we arrived to Halong City, we were pleasantly surprised by the comfort of our boat. After waiting a bit to depart, we headed out into the Gulf of Tonkin to navigate through a maze of thousands of limestone pinnacles. Legend has it that the area was created by the thumping tail of a dragon who descended from the nearby mountains and the number of secret caves and hidden grottos in the region certainly make it seem like a perfect habitat for a mythical creature.

Our first stop was one of those caves, seductively named the Surprise Cave. It was a lovely deep cave full of unspoiled stalactites and stalagmites, some of which resembled dragons, turtles and other “surprising” objects – we’ll let your imagination run wild from the picture…

Outside of the caves, floating vendors rowed from one boat to the next selling their wares to tourists. These women not only make their living on the sea, but also make their homes there, with small floating cabins and fish farms sprinkled throughout the bay.

From this aquatic village, we jumped into kayaks to explore the islands up close. At one point, we passed through a natural tunnel covered with mussels and other tiny sea creatures into an enclosed grotto lush with tropical vegetation. It really is a magical place and we were lucky that the weather cooperated and provided a warm and sunny winter day for us to experience it.

In the evening, the boat anchored and we enjoyed a few drinks on the upper deck watching the sunset and then later gazing at the stars. It was not as peaceful as we might have imagined because there were many boats docked one small area of this large national park, but it was still a worthwhile experience.

The next morning we woke and traveled through other regions of the park, mesmerized by the many different shapes and sizes of the islands. It was a very relaxing trip, with little to do other than admire the natural beauty.