Horsebottoms and the lure of the Golden Arches

After 9 months on the road we have become reliant upon the "red laterns", a sure sign of safe vegetarian food at a chinese restaurant. Now after 5 days in China, we've discovered that the red latern is no longer a sign of safety, and instead we are drawn towards a new safe haven - the Golden Arches.

Shayne (mandy's cousin) who after living in China for the past 6 months, has coined the term "horsebottom", in fear of accidentally eating some at a chinese restaurant, where you never know what you're ordering or even eating most of the time. Today, we could no longer stand another horsebottom lunch and gave in (we were broken) - we had our first McDonalds in 2 years. We can't say it was good, but at least we knew what we were ordering (and think we know what we're eating - some reconstiuted something or other).

Happy times in the park

Though we've found the Chinese to be rather stoic and unfriendly people, Sunday afternoons in Jingshan Park (just north of the forbidden city in Beijing) is apparently "happy time", with old ladies line dancing, couples ballroom dancing, large groups of choruses and impromptu jam sessions with tradiotional chinese instruments. Everyone was all smiles including the lady we met screaming by herself to no tune at all!

Some of the musicians in the happy park:

Exercise in the park

Shayne led us to a park in central Shanghai and showed us excellent examples of the new exercise craze that has taken over Shanghai (at least for the eldery) - Backward Walking. You guessed it, dozens of old people walking backwards around the park. Maybe they have the same theory that goes with cars, and are trying to "roll back" their odometer to gain a few years?

Shayne in Shanghai

After a hellish 3hr red-eye (hellish because you can't possibly get a full night's sleep in 3hrs.) We had the rare treat of being met at the airport by Denis (Mandy's cousin Shayne's husband). Shayne and family have done nothing in their power to dissuade us to leave their luxurious home in Shanghai - in fact we're thinking of spending the next 3 1/2 weeks right here! There really is no need to leave their house. The full house of 3 adorable kids (Julian, Camille & Sasha), 2 Thai Dogs, 3 Cats (1 thai, 1 tunisian & 1 greek) and a few house helpers - we just add to the crowd.

Mandy and cousin Denis on the Bund in Shanghai (the old finincial district behind us)



Mandrew on the Bund looking out to Pudong (the new financial district)



Shayne and Camille - the most brightly coloured family in Shanghai (actually in ALL of China!)



Julian playing in the back yard

Angkor Wat?

Going in we were already pretty sick of temples, but Angkor Wat proved to be a true world wonder. The number of tour buses and the size of the parking lots seemed daunting at first, but the crowds thinned out once we got inside the temples as there are so many of them and they are all enormous (we are not referring the american tourists ;))

Our favourite was Ta Phrom a smaller temple, which has been completely swallowed by the jungle over the past millenium. See pics below. Most were built between 900 - 1200 AD.

Angkor Wat



A stone carving in Angkor Wat (the largest and best condition of the Wats)



Andrew Climbing up the top staircase at Angkor Wat - seriously steep!



Mandy in front of the gate to Angkor Thom - note the huge statues lining the street, and the enormous faces on the gates.



One of the impressive trees covering Tha Phrom



Now in incognito, after his instant climb to fame from the cover of the Cambodia Lonely Planet:



Another tree in Tha Phrom



The cute faces at Bayon:



The impressive 2nd largest Wat - Bayon (see all the faces on the top):



Andrew doing the elephant walk ;)



Mandy climbing down another steep temple:



Another impressive Wat - not sure which wat's wat?



The tree and andrew (a speck at the bottom left corner of the tree)



Another fabulous tree:



An impressive view of ruins from the top of another wat



One of many almost fallen down walls/columns:



Andrew giving some english lessons to a monk (Mow):

Mining and Waterfalls

So we had another fabulous day with Bonar, our free lunch (I mean freelance) guide. We took a pretty hairy 35km road which was no wider than a singl track mountain bike trail to some gem mines and then on to a beautiful 7 tiered waterfall.

He hung a couple of hammocks for us, so we had a picnic lunch and then hung watching the goings on at the local waterfalls. Monks, villagers swimming, doing laundry, washing motor bikes etc. etc. It was really quite entertaining.

One of the wider parts of the trail - on a dodgy local bridge:



All protected from dust inhalation with a smart double sided face mask:



Mining for gems, and arduous and dangerous job. The main gem is cubic zirconium (otherwise known as fake diamonds)





Enjoying the hammock:



Monks swimming at the falls:



At the local market - Mandy has decided that this will be the new iron for us - easily transferable to any power source ;)

Resting in Ratanakiri

We're still here in Ratanakiri. We ended up extending our stay here, because we didn't want to go back on the horrific 4hr road here again! So we're flying back to P.P. on friday and then straight to Siem Reap to go to the famous Angkor Wat.

It took 2 days to get here, we had a 3hr bus ride to Kompong Cham, spent one night there, then we took the 7.30am ferry heading north (up the mekong) and arrived in Stung Treng at 4pm (after 7 1/2 hrs of cramped ride). We then took a taxi - nice, a/c, toyota camry. Which was great until we picked up 5 other passengers and they turned the a/c off. We had 4 people in back, and 3 in front, on a dirt bumpy (I mean advanced mogel runs) road for 4hrs - most of which was in the dark!
After 1 hr, the driver lost control and we ploughed into the bushes on the side of the road. Luckily no one or the car was damaged and he continued driving like a bat out of hell - as if the accident had never happened!!

Needless to say, we arrived pretty weary at 9.30, and promised not to repeat that journey later in the week!

Our lovely resort lodge here has been a great time to relax. We checked out today b/c it's too expensive ($30/night), and have moved into our regular $10 average cleanish room (at least with a/c).

A couple of days ago we took a tour with Bona - the "freelance guide", whose business cards were incorrectly printed saying "free lunch guide" a fact that he was very unhappy with! We rode on the back of motorbikes and saw a cashew farm, a peppercorn farm, a few ethnic minority villages, and an interesting minority cemetary. It was a stinking hot and exhausting day, so we were happy to spend today at the local "crater" lake swimming in the cool clear waters.

Last night Mandy thrilled the locals being the star attraction at a local wedding (Bona our guide invited us). Finally her years of getting graceful arms with synchro have paid off, she is a star Khmer dancer! Many men were asking her to dance, and numerous people kept coming up saying "you are a very good Khmer dancer!". Of course it all went to her head, and she went home singing ABBA's "dancing queen" after a few too many warm beers and Khmer dances!

Here are some pics:

The choice of pineapple or fried SPIDERS! at a rest stop on the way to Kampong Cham:



A cashew nut and it's tasty fruit!



Typical road in Cambodia - red dust (although the hill is unusual):



An old minority man making a drum. (Note to self: In order to keep ears in tact do not wear elephant tusk earings.):



Our boat trip on the way to the cemetary and villages:



One of the cemetary tomb decorations:



Two girls from a Laos village in Cambodia:



Our luxourious room at Terre Rouge:



Enjoying the Volcanic Lake:



Enjoying a Khmer Wedding with our guide Bona (in blue):

Loving Cambodia - only 8hrs in

We have safely crossed the border - Yippee, and have arrived in the vibrant city of Phnom Penh.

We had a fabulous dinner tonight at the Friends restarant. The restaurant is part of a non-profit organization to help street children, their families and the community. The food was absolutely mouth watering, and the service amazing (all the kids working there are very proffessional). A good cause for a big splurge (expensive for us at $13), of 6 tapas dishes, a passionfruit/watermelon ice smoothie and a strawberry lassi (yoghurt drink) and dessert!! delicious food!

Tomorrow we plan to head into remote north eastern cambodia (Ratanakiri province.) We will stay in luxury for a few days (for our wedding anniversary - seeing as we were on a crappy tour for the real date) at the Terre Rouge Lodge
(sorry the website is in french!)

People here are so friendly. Today we were looking into how to get north (at the local bus station) and multiple people tried to help us, they all speak pretty good english and all were giving us REAL information!!! I'm so happy to be in Cambodia!

The weather here is hot, hot, hot. It must be 90 (35) and 99% humidity. Hopefully it'll be cooler in the north east (mountainous) - it really is way too hot here - unbearable.

Thoughts on Vietnam (read at your own risk)

We were absolutely fed up with the Vietnamese people (well, to be fair - the ones who are in contact with tourists, as I think the general public are actually quite friendly). We feel that we are constantly being lied to, and no one will ever give you information or even converse with you unless they are planning on selling to you. They are aggressive and rude. People who like it here defend them by saying 2 things:

1. The reason they are so pushy is because they're poor.
2. The reason they are so pushy is because their country is being over-run with package tourism.

After travelling through Thailand and Laos we can rebutt both of these points. The people in Thailand are still friendly even though they have the most package tourism in all of SE asia, and in Laos the people are so incredibly poor, but they don't try to sell all the time, they are incredibly warm friendly people.

Of course another reason for the Vietnamese behavior could be that they secretly still hate all Westerners because of the past couple of centuries of colonialism, imperialism, and war. So we can't blame them entirely.

To summarize, the good things about travelling in Vietnam:
1. Halong Bay (amazing kayaking)
2. Shopping in Hoi Ann
3. The war museum in Saigon

The rest can be skipped, as there are way too many countries in the world to visit with welcoming, friendly people. There is no need to waste your time in Vietnam.

Mekong Delta

After trying to be independent and get away from the tourist trap, we decided to opt for the package tour in order to get the hell out of this country asap! The 3 day tour was rush rush rush, but we did get to see some cool things; how they make rice noodles, dehusking, polishing and drying of rice (I never realised that white rice is simply polished brown rice!), a floating vegetable market, a tropical fruit orchard, a coconut candy making factory (yum yum), a crocodile farm and then finally an interesting temple almost at the border, and a fish farm. Yes, our days were rather full!

We were kind of dissappointed finding that the Mekong Delta is so heavily populated and developed. In fact the city of Can Tho (which we thought was a town) has a population of 2.5million people!! That's about 2/3d's that of NZ!!

We would not recommend our tour company (Buffalo Tours), but after talking to people who did the same tour with other companies, I don't think we'd recommend any of them. They're all pretty crap! Guides in this country don't really understand the concept of service, and nothing in the tour was as it was promised when we booked it.

Some photos from the Mekong Trip:


One of the narrow canals we were in (the only "real mekong"):



Showing what they have to sell at the floating vege/fruit market, by hanging samples from a pole above the boat:



Selling watermelons:



Tomato seller:



Our english friends Jenny & Graham



Making Rice Paper:



Vietnamese Mandrew:



The crocodile farm:



Incense sticks production (extremely manual):



Mandy having her last harassement by Vietnamese people at the border!: