End of Intrepid Tour & Vietnam

Hello everyone again!

Well... we're currently in Hanoi, Vietnam now. We arrived yesterday and my God, it is absolutely FREEEEEZING! Literally has been 14 degrees... Quite a change from the tropical, intensely hot weather in all the other places we've been!

Anyway, I'll quickly (hahaha, I know, my blog's are never quick) update you on the last part of our Intrepid Tour.

After Sihanoukville - which is where I blogged from last time - we went to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia where we spent 2 nights. When we arrived in Phnom Penh, after a 4 or 5 hour bus ride, we had lunch then went straight on to the infamous "S21" - the Pol Pot Genocide Prison/Museum. What an absolutely horrible place that was...

The building was originally a school which the Khmer Rouge leaders (Pol Pot and his other completely derranged comrades) transformed into a detaining/torturing prison. Anyone that went there kind of knew that it would be the end... We learnt that every single person that got detained there, eventually got taken out to "The Killing Fields" and got killed after months of the most horrific torture you have ever heard of.

It was an incredibley sad place. No. Sorry, that is an understatement. I cannot and will not ever be able to find the words to describe the feeling of S21... From the second we arrived at the gates, you could honestly feel the overwhelming sense of evil in that place. They have now transformed a few of the cell blocks into rooms that just have rows and rows of photos the Khmer Rouge took of every person that was at the prison... There was even a wall where there were photos of children detained even as young as my own siblings that eventually got taken away and killed.

Absolutely horrible. I walked around wiping the tears off my face.

Also, on one of the walls at the end of the prison, people had written quotes or messages in memory of the 1,000,000+ people that died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge and for some reason this stuck with me:

"When this was a prison, nobody learned.
When this was a school, nobody was killed"

It is a really eery feeling walking around there... Having been to a few schools in Cambodia, where the corridors are ringing with kids laughing and mucking up for their teachers - it was a very very strange feeling walking through what was once a school in complete silence, wiping the tears away.

After S21, we went out to "The Killing Field"... Some 8000 bodies were recovered at this particular field however there are many more fields that haven't been found yet. This was also a very eery place, it was literally a field with big pits dug out of it and bones still lying in the ground. Apparently after the monsoon season they keep finding more bones that protrude out of the ground. At the killing field they also have a big monument with shelves and shelves of human skulls going all the way up to the top - a very confronting experience.

Anyway, I think that's enough about Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. It's too sad. Definitely an experience everyone should go through but not something you'd do again.

In Phnom Penh we also went to this really cool little restaurant called "Friends". It was established by a non-government organisation (NGO) to assist homeless or troubled children get off the streets. Basically, they take children in and look after them but also teach them from the very very beginner stages about hospitality. "Friends Restaurant" is the final stage of their program with most of the kids/young adults being fully trained chefs. We were served 5 star tapas dishes which were kind of western with a twist of Cambodian influence. ABSOLUTELY TO DIE FOR! We went there with our Intrepid group and liked it so much that we went back there the next day for lunch It's really good because although it was slightly more expensive (in saying that, still only about $3/dish) you actually know the money is going towards a really worthy cause!

Other than that, we didn't really do much else in Phnom Penh as we were only there for 1 full day. After Phnom Penh, we then began the 6hr bus ride to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was awesome!! Dad and Lil, you'll be proud - the first dish I ordered in Vietnam was sugar cane prawns (and my gosh, they were yummmmm!). We also visited the Ben Thanh Markets to do a bit of shopping and managed to make a few bargains!

Unfortunately though, we arrived in Ho Chi Minh on the afternoon of the 17th and our flight to Hanoi was at 12 noon on the 18th, so we didn't really even have 24 hours there a real pain too because our flight to Hanoi was delayed by 2hrs so we spent 3hrs or so doing nothing at the airport when we could have been doing more in Ho Chi Minh City!!

So, that brings me to Hanoi... Like I said at the start... It's absolutely freezing!! Strange going from one end of Vietnam to the other and the temperature dropping like 20 degrees! Me - being the silly tourist I am - only packed singlets and shorts too so you can imagine what I looked like, standing amongst all the trenchcoats, scarves, beanies and what not... "A dumb tourist", I guess hahaha.

Anyway, I managed to buy a hoodie/zip up jacket for $15 or so which is actually really nice - something you'd expect to pay $70 for in a shop like Parliament or Globalize in Australia. Luckily, I brought with me leggings and socks and stuff too - so I'm pretty much living in the same clothes for the next few days!

Hmmmm... Today we decided we'd have a pretty jam-packed day doing all the tourist attractions in Hanoi. It's an awesome city, very very French but strange because you'll see big beautiful colonial buildings but then little tacky Asian markets out the front of them hahaha. Oh, and like Ho Chi Minh City - motorbikes EVERYWHERRREEEEEEEE!

Anyway so we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum today, which was pretty interesting. President Ho Chi Minh is embalmed and lies on this bed in the middle of the room... God, there was a lot of fuss about it too... You had to pass like 500000000 security screening points where you had to give all your electrical things (phones, cameras, etc) to a guy who'd put it in a bag and you could have it back at the end. And, there were guards who had bayonets standing every 5 metres or so who told us to take our hands out of our pockets and another guy to stop talking... Pretty intense but well worth it!

After that, we went to the Women's Museum - a museum dedicated to Vietnamese women of all walks of life. From women who worked as soldiers in the Vietnam war, to women who make their money for their family by being a street vendor. It was a pretty fascinating museum!

Then we went to the Hao Lo "Hanoi Hilton" Prison Museum... Also, an incredibly interesting place. We found photos in there of John McCain when he got arrested by the North Vietnamese and taken to Hao Lo. It was actually a very nice jail... Well, as nice as one can be I guess! The rooms actually looked quite spacious, the solitary confinement room was literally about the same size as our room at the Youth Hostel in Bangkok... No joke! I mean of course, I'm sure being in the prison wouldn't have been that nice at all but we were actually quite surprised at it!

This evening we went to St Joseph's Cathedral which wasn't all that nice... The cathedral itself wasn't that special but also out the front there were a few agent orange victims begging, so it was quite sad. The cathedral is surrounded by cute little restaurants and cafes though so we popped in there for a nice hot cup of tea and coffee - remember it's actually COLD here!

Now we've come back to the hotel and I've literally spent a few hours online emailing/blogging and we haven't had dinner yet (it's almost 9pm) so we better be off now... We're thinking of going to a French restaurant for dinner tonight, we've been eating alot of traditional foods in all the countries we've been to so thought we might try French tonight... Although, there is a huge French influence here so I guess it's not as bad as going out to have Indian or something completely irrelevant to Vietnam.........

Once again, I hope you've enjoyed this update! We leave for Malaysia on Monday morning (21st)... Will update as soon as I can! Hope to hear any news from Australia soon!

Love always,
Em & James