vietnam tour

well it's been awhile since i have been able to access my blog page as in vietnam the government censors certain web sites, blog pages are one such site, oh well have to remember that it is a communist country. flew out of paro, bhutan which in it's self is fairly incredible as paro is in a narrow valley and there is a dog leg just at the approach to the runway, to bangkok for a over nighter, the following day it was onto hanoi. from the magic of nepal, tibet and the beauty of bhutan, hanoi was a little over the top. 4 million people and all on the road at the same time, it took a moment to adjust. I legged it all over the city covcering a fair bit of territory and found the locals to be not really very friendly or speak much english, which can make it quite hard at times. So i headed north on the train to sa pa, a 10 hour journey to cover 328 k's, and found it to be a visually stunning and very laid back place, at around 1650 mts, vietnams highest point. The townies don't speak much english but the h'mongs and dzao's the hilltribes speak perfectly in both english and french, quite a blow out. spent 2 great days cruising around taking in the sights, the lushness of the vegetation is amazing, and found a couple of neat vegy eating spots which are hard to find as it's meat and more meat in fact i think they eat anything that moves. moving on time and it's back to hanoi for a couple of days taking in a few last sights including the hanoi hilton where the french kept political prisoners and nth vietnam kept shot down americans, what one man can do to another! Back onto the train for a 12 hour trip to hue which is to the south and was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in nam, namely the tet offensive. Looking at the terrain coming into hue i found it difficult to understand what the americans were thinking and has given me huge respect for all sides that took part in that futile war. No wonder the vietnamese are a proud race as they in there history have been invaded by the french, chinese, japanese and the americans and not one of them has held on. Anyway into hue and it is pouring down and the banks of the perfume river have flooded, quite an amazing sight. the futher south one goes the more friendly and laid back it is, the city of hue is in 2 parts the new and the old citadel which still has 12mt thick walls and a moat, really cool. A neat couple of days in hue then on the road again through danang to a beautiful seaside place hoi an. A still very old and original town although with the continual rain parts of the town are underwater, but i guess with an annual rainfall of 2.5 mts this is bound to happen. very relaxing stay with some of the buildings over 250 y.o. but it's time to move on and back to danang for my flight to saigon, not the blowout that hanoi was, with even more people around 7 mill, but far friendlier and english is not a problem. Amazingly huge place lots of interesting sights and some great vegy eating places, also i went down to the mekong delta boating over to islands in the delta which have around 15000 people it is hard to grab the immensness of this river which is around 3 k's wide. Quite excited as the next day i will be off to seim reip in cambodia.
CAMBODIAN ADVENTURE instantly upon arrival i felt very easy about the place as it is very cruisey, the vegetation is stunning as are angkor wat and all the other wats that i have visited by tuk tuk in the last 2 days. cambodia is a fairly poor nation which really relies on the tourist dollar and they make you feel incredibly welcome, their currency is the reil but it is not used at all, amercican dollars are the go. Because of pol pot regime's of reducing the population in 1975 to 79 by 3 million it is very evident on the streets that there is a complete generation missing the cambodians have been through a lot. Tomorrow it's off to tonle sap one of the biggest lakes in the world and i'm really looking forward to, with floating villiages and a huge bird sanctuary. Well that's it for now i will try to update in phnom phen, because once back in vietnam it will not be possible. The bird sanctuary was incredible so many spieces of exotic birds, not just in 1 and 2 but dozens, it took about 2 hours across lake tonle sap it is huge to reach the transfer point which is a floating villiage amazing with schools shops etc. There we jump into a smaller craft to navigate the vegetation and floating islands to view the birds for around 3 hours, upon our return to pick up the bigger boat our skipper is rolling drunk, it started to go bad from there. He could no longer navigate the correct channels to return to the lake and we spent several hours stuck on vegetation, water intakes blocked and the prop well and truly entangled. With a lot of effort we finally made it to the lake and around 2 k's from the wharf he ran out of juice in still the wrong channel, it took awhile for another boat to find us and transfer back to shore, alls well that ends well! The following morning it was back to the lake for the boat trip down the mighty tonle sap river to phnom pehn taking around 5 hours, arrived at boat about 5 minutes before departure in a hiace van with 12 backpackers and luggage plus driver- incredible! there was no room inside the boat so i joined around 30 odd on the cabin roof, a bit like a bus in nepal, needless to say we all got terribly wind burnt. There were a lot of laughs as i hooked up with a couple of totally mad irishmen during the journey, the scenery was totally awesome, with floating villiages, local fishing craft and the odd temple. The tonle sap lake and river is the source of 60% of cambodia's protien, one of the biggest freshwater fisheries in the world. We arrived at our destination around midday and it's quite hot, phnom pehn is a fairly dirty city from what i have seen so far, it seems with no disrespect that the people want to have all the mod cons but everything not wanted gets tossed into the street, bush in fact just anywhere. It is really hard to find any rubbish bins to dispose of anything, i guess the hotels take all the turo's rubbish, not a really good system.
Since there is a day and a half left i decide to hire a vehicle and go out to the "killing fields" around 13 k's out of the city, i feel it is necessary to experience, as it is central to what the cambodians have been through and was very moving. Upon returning to the city i visited "S21" the scene of imprisonment, torture and death of thousands of the locals, Americans, Australians and Kiwis by the Khmer Rogue child killers and nothing prepared me for the outpouring of emmotions for what they must have endured. The rest of the day was a little lighter visiting the royal palace and grounds which were awesome but so much opulence for one family with such a poor nation and the natural museum. A rather heavy day but tomorrow at midday i fly back to Saigon for my trip to the Mekong delta region to begin my volunteer stint, which i am looking forward to.
BACK IN VIETNAM returning to saigon around 3 hours later than scheduled, viet airlines lived up to their reputation of no problem flights but unpredictable take off times. It's just an overnighter in district 1 then on to the volunteer house in district 10 for my volunteering orientation and transfer to the delta region. A local bus ride of around 70ks on an absolute scorcher of a day down to My Tho one of the poorest provinces in Nam, with one of the richest governing bodies and largest police forces, definitely food for thought, where our accomodation is situated. The accomodation is pretty poor by anyones standards but it is only 3 weeks and i'm sure i'll live, here i meet the other volunteer Mark a physcologist from yorkshire, who has been here for 2 weeks already and whom i will be bunking with. Morning arrives and it's out to the building site around 7 ks east as pillions on honda cubs, a little scary the first time but over the 3 weeks it became quite relaxed and a natural way to get around. The first week for me involved a fair bit of general labouring, but at the start of the second week was elevated to a bricky and never looked back, it took awhile to get used to their system but once there laid heaps of bricks, working alongside a local named Doy with a total lack of common language had heaps of laughs and got the job done. I guess the neatest part was the hand over ceremony to the new owners and the incredible look of joy on their faces made all the hard yakka completely worth it. It was a little emmotional to part with Doy and the rest of the crew and also as we had become part of the local community for a short time they were really nice and very generous towards us. With the project over Mark and i head back to Saigon by bus, he to go on travelling up north to Sa Pa and myself an overnighter then fly out the next day back to west oz.