It sure has been a while since I have done one of these things. I can't say that it isn't because I haven't been busy. My parents and two of their friends came to visit  at the beginning of April, which was quite fun. We spent a weekend at Ha Long bay on a boat, just enjoying the scenery. It was quite spectacular there. However, what we saw in Ha Long Bay was not nearly as nice as what I saw up in northern Vietnam in the province of Cao Bang.

Two weeks ago my friend Nathan and I learned that the weekend that was coming up was actually a four day weekend. Excited by this news we quickly tried to figure out what to do with it. A mutual friend of ours had recommended Cao Bang as a destination worth visiting, so we decided to do that. After doing some checking, we decided that it would be really fun to do the trip by motorbike. We had enjoyed biking in the mountains in the past and from what we had heard it was really mountainous where we were going. So that week we got a second motorbike from MCC and a map. On the Saturday at 7:00 I went to Nathan's house to pick him up and hit the road. Unfortunately I had forgotten my passport and so we had to go back to my place to get that. We were about to leave again, when I realised that we had no idea of how to get to Cao Bang. We had a map, but neither of us had looked at it. After consulting it we plotted a course and were underway.

The first three hours of riding were hellish. Hanoi never really ends until the city of Thai Nguyen, and the whole way there you are riding in really dusty conditions and driving bumper to bumper. Traffic in Hanoi is bad, but is nothing compared to that highway. Fortunately things changed in Thai Nguyen.

The Map above is color coded for each day of riding. Red is the first day where we went to Cao Bang, the second is green and we went to the Ban Gioc waterfall, the third is blue and we went to the Pac Bo cave, and  finally purple is the fourth day when we went home via Ba Be national park.

In Thai Nguyen we stopped for a break and had coffee in a little coffee shop and had a nice chat with the owner. After that we were suddenly in the mountains and the traffic died down until there was hardly any body else on the road. From Thai Nguyen  to Bac Kan was quite enjoyable, though Nathan almost ran out of gas just outside of Bac Kan. We stopped for a Pho lunch in Bac Kan and then continued on our way. The scenery kept getting better and better, and the road was in excellent condition. It was a real joy to go zipping around corners and up and down hills on the motor bike. Finally, after about 8 hours of driving, we arrived in Cao Bang city, where  we planned to stay.

The next day we planned to visit the Ban Gioc waterfall on the border with China. There was two ways there that were nearly equal in distance, so we decided to go one way, and come back the other. The guy at the desk at our hotel told us to go only one way, but based on how the roads were the day before we figured it really didn't matter which way we took.

Going to Ban Gioc we took the northern route, which was the way we were told not to take. For the first three hours or so it was just like the day before, with even less traffic.

Half way up a pass

Then we turned off the road we were on and were shocked by how much the road conditions degraded.

However, to make up for the potholes, we were treated to the most gorgeous scenery.

A small town we passed through

Eventually we met up with the road that we would eventually take back and stopped for lunch. After lunch we ploughed on to the falls. The road seemed to be getting better, which was a relief. Then we hit the red mud.

That truck was stuck and not going anywhere

Due to whatever circumstances they were putting this soil onto the road. It was around three inches deep and incredibly slippery. You could feel your bike slipping around... right up to the point when you flop over. I was fortunate as I was going pretty slow when I lost control. My bike just fell on its side and my pants got coated in mud. Nathan got launched off his bike at one point, but wasn't hurt. It wasn't much fun to drive in. eventually it ended and we arrived at Ban Gioc.

The border between China and Vietnam straddles the falls. much like Niagara. The Chinese side is built up, whereas the Vietnamese side is a little less touristy.

There were little boats there that you could pay 300,000 dong to and they would take you right up to the falls. The ones with red tops came from the Chinese side while the blue ones were from Vietnam.

After seeing the falls we drove home on a remarkably better road, though in my opinion it was less scenic.

The next day we went to Pac Bo. It is the place that Ho Chi Minh stayed when he returned from exile and started the revolution there. Like Ban Gioc, it was right on the border.

There were some times where we figured that we had entered into China.

Our goal at Pac Bo was to find Ho Chi Minh's house, as it has been preserved. We climbed one mountain, but after an hour of straight up climbing we were sure that it wasn't there. We climbed another mountain that one guy told us has something of importance, but after fourty-five minutes we found out that the house wasn't there. Finally we went back to the parking lot and found another path there that led off into the hills. Five minutes later we found the house.

The view from Uncle Ho's House

The drive home was not as nice as the drive up. We decided to take a detour and visit Ba Be national park as it was sort of on the way. It was a pretty area with a large lake, but unfortunately we had misjudged how long it would take us to get there so we couldn't look around to much. It took 8 hours to get to Cao Bang, but it took nearly 13 to get back. We were exhausted by the time we finally got home.

Tet Time

Hello All and Happy Lunar New Year

For those of you are unaware, many eastern countries still operate on the old lunar calendar of 12 months with 30 days in each of them. This leads to there being two new years celebrations here in Hanoi. The solar year celebration at the same time as ours, and the lunar new year celebration in February. The solar calendar year celebration is very minor, much like Christmas here. The lunar new year, or Tet, is very much the Christmas of Vietnam. It is very much a big deal.

I had chosen to stick around for Tet to see what it is all about. This year we had a week and a half off of work for Tet, so I could have gone nearly anywhere in Vietnam for a trip. However, having returned from Cambodia, and more recently Saigon, I figured that sticking around with my host-family wouldn't be a bad idea.

I should probably mention something about Saigon as I failed to do so in my last blog. Back in November, my host-mother mentioned that she wanted me to join her and her son in a trip down to Saigon, and of course I said yes. So four days after getting back from Cambodia, I was on a plane back south to Saigon. I must first off state that the day after we got there I contracted some sort of stomach flu, causing me to be in constant need of a bathroom. However, I worked hard to not let it slow me down. We spent most of the time going to pagodas. My host-mothers brother is a Buddhist monk, and so our home base while in Saigon was his home pagoda, a little hole in the wall in downtown Saigon.

I feel like I should say something about pagodas and temples here in Vietnam, because they are quite interesting. In the years since Vietnam began to shift away from communism, there has been a real boom in pagoda building. It seems like most of the pagodas I have visited are brand new, or are new structures on old pagoda sites. They all built like traditional pagodas, but now have wiring and power so that they can have flashy neon / Christmas lights around the Buddha (someone once referred to this as Disco Buddha, a term I quite like). While it's not on the same scale, it's almost like building classic European Cathedrals and is a multi-million dollar business here in Vietnam.

The pagoda we stayed near was not new, nor big, but was quite nice nonetheless. The big pagoda at Dai Lam however, is another story.

Dai Lam Pagoda

Dai Lam Park is a Buddhist Amusement Park. Imagine a Disney World but except of fun happy characters there was the Buddha. That's what this was like. We first visited the Pagoda to pay respects to the Buddha, and then went on to visit things like a haunted house type thing, except instead of horrors that we would know, they were instead the classic horrors from Chinese literature. Another was a ride that takes you through the various levels of Hell before showing scenes of heaven. It was as bizarre as it sounds. I have a feeble knowledge of this sort of thing, and that's the only thing that prevented me from being incredibly confused. The one really cool thing was "Snow World." We entered this place and were issued light parkas, a pair of rubber boots, and some mitts, and then went through an air lock into a tiny toboggan hill. My host-brother had never seen snow before and was quite excited. Had I been feeling well I would have been quite happy to hang around there for a long time, but alas that was not the case.

My extended host-family (mother's side) and myself

The Ride through Hell

As for Saigon itself, I never really visited any of the museums or sites because we were busy visiting other things.

As for Tet, there is not a lot to say. Everything is closed and the tradition is to go and visit friends and family every day. You eat a lot and visit pagodas. There are lots of little traditions surrounding luck that happen at this time. Older people give younger people Ly Xi, or lucky money. You go to pagodas and donate lots of money to various saints, gods and the Buddha for luck, and the more temples you visit, the luckier you are. You can buy a fortune (mine states that I am to be very lucky this year), and also read a chart that tells you which stars you are under this year (I ended up with two very good ones, though I was told there aren't any bad stars, just good and excellent).

I would like to point out that I am just over the half way point for my trip. It feels like I have been here for a long time, and yet it also feels like the end is coming soon, even though the time is the same. There is still a lot coming up. The Gioi is going on a trip somewhere north up in the mountains in the next couple weeks, as well as a trip to the beach sometime in June. My parents are starting to establish dates for when they will be visiting, and I still have a holiday, courtesy of The Gioi, where I can go up to Sa Pa. It's going to be a busy 5 months or so.

An Angkor Christmas

Welcome everyone to my fabulous recap of what I have been up to for the past two weeks, namely travelling to Cambodia. What follows will be mostly pictures, but as I have none from the beginning of the trip, you will have to settle for me simply telling you about it.

On Christmas morning I drove to No Bai airport with my host-dad and got on a plane to Phnom Penh. We had a quick stop-over in Laos before arriving around noon in Cambodia. I was met by a group of SALTers who I had met way back in orientation and had become friends with. There was Lynanne, Liz, Michael and Nicole. We spent the day checking out the sights in Phnom Penh such as Diamond Island, the Russian Market, Sambo the elephant, and the best burger I've had in South East Asia. The next day we met up with several other MCC staff from the region and headed for Sihanoukville, a town on the coast where we anticipated 3 days of fun in the sun. Amazingly enough, Sihanoukville delivered exactly that. We spent a day on the beach, a day snorkelling, and a day just enjoying the town. It was quite nice even though we had been informed the day before we left that Sihanoukville is the fourth worst beach in the world. The reason: sewage being pumped into the ocean there. I didn't notice sewage at all, so I thought Sihanoukville was great.

From Sihanoukville we went to Siem Reap, the town just outside the Angkor Wat ruins. There we spent a couple days (including New Years) enjoying the town and relaxing. On the 2nd my friends left me alone in Phnom Penh and it was then that I finally had my opening to go to the ruins. The head of MCC is South East Asia, Andy, is a huge fan of the ruins at Ankor Wat and so he gave me all sorts of hints and tips for how to go about visiting the various ruins and also hooked me up with a driver, Chon (John). The way people in Cambodia get around is by Tuk-Tuk (pictured below). Its essentially a carriage pulled around by a motorcycle.

John enjoying some downtime while I visit a temple

The most important thing to know about Angkor, is that Angkor Wat itself is only a small, albiet important, part of the overall picture. There are dozens of temples (wats), city ruins, statues, and monasteries in a 40 km area, and Angkor Wat is merely one of them.  My trip started with visiting Angkor Thom, a city that dwarfed Angkor Wat and was build some time after.

I can't take credit for this map, but it gives you some sense of scale

The gate to Angkor Thom

My first Angkor Thom stop was Bayon, a temple.

Bayon in the morning

Faces of the King adorn everything

A small sample of the carvings on the walls of Bayon

Immediately adjacent to Bayon is a terrace decorated with elephants, one of the most sacred animals in Cambodia.

One of the really cool things about Angkor is that even though the place is in ruins, it still functions as a place of worship for Buddhists. Every place I went I ran into monks, and every temple has a functioning altar to the Buddha where people pray, light incense, and donate money.

Visiting temples is tiring even for the most pious of people

One of my favourite places to visit was Ta Keo. It was easily the most difficult climbs, but was still really cool.

I'll mention it here that another thing that makes Angkor really cool is that they really haven't built it up. You don't walk on board walks or anything and you can largely go wherever you want. This also means that you climb up some insane stairs.

All that said, some parts are supported through reconstruction efforts

The ladies at the bottom said that I was the most skilled climber of these stairs that they had seen.

Even German Anarchists enjoy visiting Angkor

Piles of rubble everywhere

The towers of Angkor Wat in the distance

Elephant decorations

Buddha with a parasol. I don't have anything else to say

Neak Pean, one of my favourite places at Angkor

Sometimes information about the site was just out of reach

While I'm not terribly artistically inclined, I did find many of the carvings at Angkor to be spectacular.

By the second day, I was so efficient in visiting Wats that I had completed all the Wats I was supposed to see in half a day in only a few hours, so I decided to go visit Bataney Srei. While it was nice, it was easily the busiest site I visited.

The gate to Bataney Srei, and a throng of tourists

Bataney Srei was like the other temples, but in miniature.

 

The final place I visited was Angkor Wat itself. I had been told to arrive at noon to beat the hordes of tourists, ignore everything as you come in and head straight for the central tower structure and climb it before the tourists return from lunch. With that in mind, I followed the instructions to the letter, I ran through the nearly empty city and got to the central towers and was greeted with this sign:

and this one

Thoroughly disillusioned with Angkor Wat I kept walking until I got to the causeway opposite the one I entered at. Once I calmed my fury to a low boil, I toured the place in reverse.

Angkor Wat from behind

It was infested with monkeys. Luckily I didn't have any glasses for them to steal this time.

There were more carvings than I cared to look at. They were all magnificent though

The towers that I was unable to climb

Much of the original city was made of wood, leaving vast areas of open space

Half the causeway was restored, half still waiting for it

All in all my trip was amazing. I had a lot of fun and I'm re-energised for working at The Gioi.

Coming Soon

Hello All

It's been a while since I've put anything up here, and likely it will have to wait a little while longer as I leave Cambodia today for Hanoi... and then promptly leave two days later for Saigon. A big update is in order but it will have to wait until I am finished my holidays. In short, Cambodia in general was amazing and Angkor Wat in particular was unbelievable. If you ever are in South East Asia, you need to go see the temples.