The capital of Cambodia

we stayed in the center of Phnom Phen at the laughing fat man hotel, which is literally ran by a laughing fat man. A cozy place in the middle of a pulsing city. Surrounded by bars and restaurants.

Phnom Penh made a big impression to us. If you walk around you see stunning temples, beautiful buildings, expensive cars and fancy hotels and restaurants. But around the corner of the kings palace or any other fancy building there are dozens of children begging for food and money. In the night you see them laying with their siblings on one little blanket in a dark corner of the street.

Restaurants are full with old western men in accompaniment of young Asian girls. Girls trying to escape poverty and build up a better life.

In all this poverty Cambodian people are always friendly and trying to please you. If you look back on their history, which is full with war and killing, it is just amazing that Cambodians are like they are.

The last war is still so recent and made such a big influence on the country we decided to find more out about it. We took a TukTuk to a place 20km away from Phnom Penh.

This place is called the killing fields. In the 70s the Khmer Rouge (a communist party) gained power and took over Cambodia. During their leadership the killed 20% of Cambodians population, which is more then 1,5 mio. They brought them to the place called the killing fields. Men, women and children were killed there in cruel ways and buried in mass graves. We got an audio tour and spent there 3 hours listing to the stories of survivors and explanations about the war. This time at the fields was so touching and heavy. It is just 30 years ago, so recent and so scary.

After a few days in Phnom Penh we have to move on to Siem Reap. Unfortunately Jeff wakes up sick on the day we left the city. A terrible bus ride through a beautiful country later we arrive in Siem Reap and were picked up by Rady. The director of a local English school.

Update

Check our new photos under the Vietnamese flag in the Photo Gallery!

Goodbye of Betsy

The last day with Betsy was not a nice road. Just highway but it needed to be done to make Ho Chi Minh city. Ho Chi Minh city also known as Saigon is big and crowded. It's the only city in Vietnam that really gives you the feeling of being big or better said massive although it has only 7 million inhabitants.

After more than 2500 km it was time to change transportation again. For selling Betsy we called the guys where we bought it from and of course it went as smooth (read as totally not) as when we picked Betsy up in Hanoi. But 10 phone calls and 3 times discussion about the price and refund later we successfully sold Betsy.

Helpless without our bike we booked some tours to see the surroundings of Saigon. We went to the famous cu chi tunnels which were used during the American war as hiding place. The Vietnamese did an impressive job with making whole villages underground. The tunnels being so small that western people can not enter them. To give the tourist (like us) an impression they made a special tourist tunnel and some kind of small theme park around it. Here you can see everything about life in that period. We made it to through the 150 meter tourist tunnel and where soaked. It's soooo warm in the tunnel you can't imagine.

To end our Vietnam experience we went for a 3 day tour to the Mekong delta in the south of Vietnam which will end in Cambodia. This trip turned out to be a rush through the delta. We saw a lot of places we could not really link with the delta. They only thing we really learned is about the “happy room”. Every tour guide we met proudly told about the room where you go stressed in and come happy out: The restroom hahahaha. (Most of time it was only the guide that was laughing which made it actually a bit funny)

We also visited the biggest floating market of the Mekong Delta. It was nice to see how Vietnamese people do the trading on the water. Everyone comes with his boat and hangs outside what the offer for sale on a long stick, so everyone can see it. It was mostly pineapple, potato, salad and dragon fruit.

Our last morning in Vietnam was long, waking up at 5:30 to hop on a boat to Cambodia. With some short stops at a fish farm and a minority village, we arrived at 10 at the border which we crossed over water. After both border offices and a new visa we are heading to Phnom Penh by bus.

Dalat

Dalat is located at 1500 m above sea level and so a bit colder than the rest of Vietnam. In the evening it was only 15 degrees and we felt like in need of a winter jacket. If you have around 30 degrees for two months 15 is really cold. Its built on hills and is divided by a river. Dalat has beautiful architecture, a lot of influence by the french. It is really a beautiful city.

Besides the temperature we had a warm welcome. The hotel staff was nice and we met some motorcycle tour guides. Although we are traveling ourselves by bike the tour they had to offer sounded interesting. This would be the opportunity to visit all the things we saw on the side of the road for the last three weeks. We went the next morning on the back of the bikes and saw a coffee-, a flower farm and a silk factory before we got all the insights of rice whiskey making.

The whiskey distillery had a bit of a side business, weasel coffee. Weasel coffee is really expensive because the animal only eats the nicest coffee beans plus the enzymes in the stomach makes the taste even better. It sounds interesting but the reality is a sad sight. The weasels are put in really small cages where they move their body nervously from right to left.

One of the nicest things that day was a walk down a really dangerous path, it was really slippery, wet and we had to crawl over stones. This path ended behind a waterfall. It was amazing to stand there, hear the water rushing down and fell the water spray.

The coffee capital

Buon ma Thuot is surrounded by coffee plantations and is also known as the coffee capital of Vietnam. We just came in after harvesting so lots of pieces of road were confiscated for drying coffee beans. We booked two nights in a resort called the coffee tour, so expected actually to get a tour. Unfortunately there was no tour.

Instead we grabbed our map and took Betsy for a spin towards Yok Don National park, hired a guide and hiked through the forest for an hour or two. The park is mainly dry deciduous forest and has a lot of wildlife. If you some spend some more time there you could see monkeys, deers, snakes, elephants and more. We were really excited to see an elephant in the park until we noticed it was chained. The elephant was there for tourists to ride on. Fortunately Yok Don is not really known by tourists. After our 2 hour hike we stopped at the river and took a local boat back to the entrance. When the guy arrived with his boat he had to close some holes with fabric first and empty the boat from water. We thought that it wont sink if he is still on it and so we trusted the guy and enjoyed our little boat ride through the jungle. On the way home Caro did her first longer drive with Betsy and she did a pretty good job racing through the countryside.

The old capital and the tourist Mecca of Vietnam

After the turbulence of the typhoon and to be stuck in the middle of nowhere for 3 days, we were happy to move on. The next destination was Hue, the old capital of Vietnam. We visited the forbidden city, it is the little brother of the one in Beijing. Took a ride with a rickshaw through the old town and visited museums. We spent the evenings with 2 guys from Britain (we already met them in Phong Nha, they are also on a motorbike tour through Vietnam) drank beer for free in their hostel and were eating delicious burgers while playing billiard.

It was not far from Hue to Hoi An but it took quiet a long time to go there. The road goes a long the coast and is really hilly. It rained like fuck and the wind was blowing hard. Unfortunately we were only equipped with a rain poncho and plastic bags, not like the Britain s ;)with their hightec gear. At this moment we were so jalouse about their equipment. But thankfully we arrived Hoi An save but totally wet.

Hoi An has an ancient habour and it is known for its custom made clothes and shoes. It is full with restaurants and Bars, little bridges and cloth/food market. The architecture is influenced by the french (Vietnam was a french colony). It just looks beautiful. In the eve we met again the Britains and some other people from the farmstay, it was like a reunion. We went altogether for some beer and an awesome dinner in a quiet chic restaurant. The next day we rented a bicycle and drove to the beach unfortunately we could not use it because the typhoon let its marks. We also let some custom made shoes done for us. Jeff has now custom made Flip Flops :). 

The flood

Making it to Phong Nha, a day later though, was nice. Also because of the warning for typhoon Nari, which should hit the coast that day. We checked in the Phong Nha farmstay - run by a Vietnamese Australian couple. 2 weeks ago another typhoon hit the Hotel, they had to shut down for a while. Still there were some after effects of this typhoon, like no electricity and hot water. We didn’t mind because the staff was really nice and the rooms were so comfortable. The next day we did a tour to the paradise cave (the biggest dry cave in Asia)and the jungle around the cave (has a lot of war history). It was raining really hard so we couldn’t do a hike in the forest. After all it was really interesting and beautiful to watch.

On the way back to the farmstay we noticed that the river became a lot bigger and some streets were flooded. A bit scared to see that, we hoped that the farmstay is far enough away to not be flooded.

In the night the wind was getting so strong and it rained heavily that we could hardly sleep.We woke up the following morning and found the entire area under about 2-3 meters of water. “luckily” the farmstay was on a little hill so the water only reached the entrance. During the day the water was rising and we started to move all the bikes on higher ground and shifted beds, generator, fridges and documents from the farmstay to the first floor.

As there was nothing to do anymore then watch the water rising, we opened some beers and had some nice chats with the other guests. In the eve the water stopped rising (a few centimeters from the ground floor, which still meant a rise of 1,5 meter from the moment we woke up that morning) and retreated the rest of the day.