James and Jo’s south east Asia adventure

The hotel had a fairly generous check out time of midday and as our flight wasn’t until 7 there was no rush. The restaurant manager the evening before asked if we’d had the Khmer soup for breakfast yet from the dedicated station yet, we hadn’t, and after confirming that he was also working the breakfast shift we knew what we would be having. To be fair it was very nice, although we had had a lot of noodle dishes by this point.

After checking out we decided to stay within the boundaries of the hotel to try and reduce the prospect of sweating too much given we wouldn’t be able to shower for another 30 hours or so. We spent a couple of hours in a somewhat shaded area by the pool. It appeared that there had been an influx of new guests as the pool area was much busier than it had been on any other day, including a load of kids. Spending these last couple of hours by the pool made us even more appreciative of the tranquility we had enjoyed during our downtime the previous few days.

As we approached the newly opened and modern-looking airport that had been part-funded by China there was overt evidence of the Chinese “belt and road” initiative in practice as we crossed Xi Jinping boulevard. There were also acres of churned up land where Chinese-funded builders had laid the groundwork before the construction had ceased for whatever reason, leaving a mess and eyesore for the Cambodians.

Despite some reservations prior to leaving that perhaps going at the tail end of the rainy season was not the best time to visit we actually had relatively little rain over the course of the whole two weeks. We had a great time in every city and possibly even benefited from some places not being saturated with tourists, we couldn’t t have asked for things to be much better.

As the holiday neared its conclusion there was a shift towards a greater proportion of our time spent ‘at leisure’. On our last full day we went to the nearby ‘Wat Phnom’ for an hour or so in the morning. It’s a religious site contained within a well-maintained park and the temple on the top of the hill is the highest religious point in Phnom Penh. Whilst we were walking around the park we saw a flock of hornbills that are known to frequent the place.

We spent the rest of the day at the pool before having dinner at the hotel restaurant. With it being the start of Pchum Ben, an important 15 day festival in the Cambodian calendar, the hotel had arranged for an evening performance of traditional Khmer dance, which we had forgotten about. Three dancers would perform for a couple of minutes every half an hour or so from 7. We were seated closer to the performers than any of the other guests but thankfully not right at the base of the stage, so they didn’t have to contend with the potentially off putting close-up sight of me smearing the contents of my Wagyu burger across my face whilst they were concentrating on performing.

The restaurant manager seemed to have taken a special interest in us, and after a five minute monologue on the importance of the palm tree to the Cambodian people insisted that we have a Khmer palm-based dessert. It was reasonably nice, but neither of us felt the need to have a dessert after starter and main, and wouldn’t have opted for that even knowing how it tasted. 

We visited the Cambodia history museum, the exhibits were almost exclusively statues along with the longest hand-sown scarf in the world. It seems as though Cambodia has a long history of artefacts being looted or maliciously damaged. Maybe the British museum should’ve taken more of them previously.

Some of the oldest statues from c.6th century ad seemed more impressive than the ones from last century to my untrained eye and also looked better than some of the renaissance marbles in the Vatican and other museums (obviously not better than the most lauded renaissance pieces).

After spending a worthwhile hour or so at the museum we then went straight to the central market. The market was set out in sections and there were plenty of stalls and sellers, but it was far from a hive of activity and I was pleasantly surprised that the sellers weren’t as aggressive as I expected when it came to hawking their wares. I bought a few t-shirts and at one stall when they were initially offering 2 t-shirts for 5 dollars I managed to counter offer with 1 for 3 dollars – they accepted and my hard-nosed bargaining paid off.  We both bought a few other souvenirs.

We spent a relaxing few hours by the pool and had a late lunch poolside. I had steamed fish in a curry sauce and Jo had a ham and cheese panino that was so big she didn’t come close to finishing it. It was happy hour and 2 for 1 on cocktails, I had one that consisted of white chocolate infused vodka and Bailey’s plus a couple of other ingredients – I didn’t look at the ingredients beyond chocolate when I ordered it and as I don’t actually like Bailey’s found it too sickly and forfeited the free one despite my sweet tooth and passion for free alcohol.

We booked to go to to a Kun Khmer (Muay Thai by a different name) event in the evening and were being picked up at 5.30. I threw on one of the t-shirts that I bought earlier in the day that had the logo for Angkor Beer, one of the popular local brands.

Our guide Sina had a van that was stocked with a cool box full of cans of beer and ice. The traffic on the way to the event was heavy and this helped it go quicker. In Cambodia there is the potential to win prizes with each ringpull in a can of beer, ranging from free beer, to cash prizes, to houses. I can see why such deals aren’t allowed in the uk as I was keen to finish my beers just to get to the next ringpull. We ‘won’ 3 free cans between us. Sina recounted how in 2017 three of his friends went out for drinks without him and won £100,000 US dollars; they all now own coffee shops.

One of the two main sponsors of the event was the beer brand ‘Ganzberg’, with their name appearing on the ring skirting and around the venue. These were also the brand of beer that Sina had brought with him.

Kun Khmer is the most popular sport in Cambodia and matches are televised on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The smaller events like the one we attended are in a tv studio with the bigger ones taking place in a stadium outside of the city. The tv studio had a capacity of 300 and there were probably about 150 people in attendance. 

Prior to the first match starting I noticed one of the camera assistants staring at me but didn’t think too much of it, even after he came to have a word with our host a couple of minutes later. Sina then relayed to me that I couldn’t wear my t-shirt at the event as it featured the logo of a rival beer brand that were not a sponsor of the event. For a second I thought I would have to leave, then realised I couldn’t wear my just turn the t-shirt inside out. Fortunately the t-shirt wasn’t double-sided! Definitely an over the top reaction from corporate Cambodia.

Considering it is the national sport I was surprised by the lack of enthusiasm of the crowd. The only notable exception was during the second fight when the fighter in the blue corner had a few members of his club at ringside who lived every strike with him.

The final match of the night featured a Cambodian fighter against an Iranian opponent. When the Cambodian fighter knocked out his opponent the studio immediately emptied. By the time the referee lifted the victor’s arm there was barely anyone in attendance to acclaim the homegrown fighter’s victory. I was surprised by how nonplussed the crowd were and don’t know if it is more lively at larger events.

We’d been told by our waiter at breakfast the previous day that the Royal Palace should be visited and the morning would be the best time as there is a sort of festival, Pchum Ben, that takes place over 15 days and affects which areas of the palace grounds can be visited in the afternoon for. As it happened the weather in the morning was great but there was a downpour all afternoon so it doubly made sense to go in the morning.

Our hotel was immediately opposite the Palace so it was literally a two minute walk to the entrance. However in that time we were still able to be accosted by a tuk tuk driver, a “Mr Phen”, who had a laminated list of places to visit around Phnom Penh that he was offering to take us to. Suggesting we could see a couple of these other sites first and then he’d take us back to the palace, we said we wanted to see the palace first but might see him later, which we would…

We went into the palace and opted for a tour guide when offered, this was definitely a good decision as they provided heaps of information and knowledge and as there weren’t really any plaques displaying information we would have been quite ignorant of any details otherwise. The buildings in the palace complex are stunning and the amount of golden idols is breathtaking. The centrepiece was a 90kg solid gold Buddha with diamond inserts. Having queued up to view the Scottish and English Crown Jewels in the last couple of years I would say that what was on display here was even more impressive. Photos are now banned within this area apparently to limit public/global knowledge of the riches on display. There seemed to be almost no security in this area either.

One of the buildings in the silver pagoda complex had a fresco depicting the Ramayana (a Sanskrit epic) painted in 1903 that must have been over a hundred metres long.

After finishing our tour around the palace and having a look ourselves we grabbed a drink to cool down the headed for the exit. Mr Phen was sat down by the exit and had presumably been there for the entire time that we had been in the palace complex (c. 1.5 hours). He clearly had designs on being our personal driver, we had decided not to go to any of the main tourist sites but would go to the central market for the right price. He started with a relatively high quote for a round trip and said that he would wait for us there and drive us back. We got frustrated with this interaction and so ended up just crossing the road into the hotel. To be honest we were both happy to have a bit of a relax after a hot morning. We were lying by the pool when the rain came just before 3 (especially annoying as that’s when happy hour was due to start!) and didn’t let up for the whole afternoon. It was a good choice to do the palace in the morning and we felt confined to the hotel given the weather, our only real period of prolonged bad weather. We watched ‘first they killed my father’ on Netflix, a film directed by Angelina Jolie about the Cambodian genocide. 

We ate dinner at the hotel restaurant for the first time, I had a roasted barramundi that came with a rich beef gravy, a bit weird but still tasted fine; and Jo had a ‘spaghetti’ carbonara that turned out to be a penne carbonara – safe to say that pasta was not their forte.

After a good sleep in the very comfortable hotel bed we had our first breakfast in Cambodia. It was a definite step up on the Saigon breakfast and varies slightly each day. Crucially for those of us that like a lie in it’s available until 10.30am!

We were picked up at midday by our guide as we were doing the essential, but morbid, tour of the killing fields and prison S21. The first stop was the killing fields and on the way there the guide gave us a history of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot, including detailing the horrific methods of torture used on anyone who was arrested.

The actual killing field was a former Chinese cemetery and smaller than I expected, although it should be remembered that this was just one of a few hundred such sites across the country. Most of the killings were carried out using objects that were intended to have more benign uses such as hoes and scythes so as not to waste bullets. We viewed the memorial that is made up of tiers of skulls and bones and bought a couple of Lotus flowers from a seller at the base of the monument to place as a mark of respect to the deceased.

There was a surviving victim of the Pol Pot regime who was subjected to torture, but whose life was spared as he was a mechanic and was useful to them for fixing cars. He was selling copies of his book detailing his experiences outside the field. Jo bought a copy and he signed it.

We then went to the S21 prison, a former high school that was converted to a notorious prison under the Khmer Rouge. The ‘non-vip’ cells were maybe 1.5m x 2.0m. Being an inmate at this prison was basically a death sentence as there are only 12 known survivors and 12,000+ killed. There were hundreds of mugshots displayed of people that had been brought to the prison and individual stories of some of the individuals who were known to have been brought there. 

There were two more survivors of the regime selling their stories within the prison. One of the survivors was 95 years old and looked to be quite sprightly for his age, all the more impressive given what we had endured, including losing the sight in his left eye as a result of electrocutions. We may have been better off buying his book as it had been translated into a number of languages and was apparently quite famous, as the English in the book Jo purchased was riddled with errors.

The only meal we had prebooked before the holiday was at a restaurant called Wat Damnak, a fine dining restaurant with a 6 or 8 course tasting menu in the evening. We opted for the 8 course and had a few cocktails along the way to accompany the courses. 

It was a slightly surreal dining experience as when we arrived there was one other couple dining, who finished around the time of our fourth course. From then on we essentially had 5 staff waiting on us in the most literal sense. As they could probably go home once we were finished. I’m not sure if pre-booking was necessary as the restaurant obviously had more than enough space for us, but they may not have wanted to stay open for longer than necessary. A party of 3 did show up at one point and chat to the front of house but they didn’t dine for whatever reason.

The food was nice, if not show stopping, with the frogs legs probably the highlight. They offered to switch it to chicken for us but I’m glad we declined.

A couple of days earlier, as part of the world’s effort to make visiting Cambodia as awkward as possible, I had a message saying that the 9.45am coach that we’d booked wasn’t available due to ‘temporary maintenance’, but there was another one available at 8.00am. It meant an early start and no breakfast but only a slight inconvenience.

We arrived at the departure office half an hour early where we discovered that we needed visas to visit Cambodia. Fortunately they could be purchased on the spot for $40 each. Travelling with giant ibis, the premium coach company meant that everything was dealt with as well as possible. There were about 10 of us on a coach that would’ve seated c.40, I was expecting it to be packed given the cancellation. The seats were very comfortable, the aircon was great and it was possibly the most spacious coach I’d been on. Such is the vastness of the sprawling Ho Chi Minh City we were still within the city limits after travelling for an hour!

When we got to the Vietnam border there was a lot of cash changing hands between people who didn’t really look like they were operating in an official capacity. Still we’d paid 40 bucks each to get across the border and I guess it didn’t really matter to us where it went, our guide or ‘fixer’ took care of everything.

We had a mediocre lunch in the restaurant/duty free area between the border crossing points. It had a circular facade with the glass only translucent, potentially due to pollution and not being washed in a long time. The hall with the stacks of duty free products had huge sheets of paper taped across all of the walls. I got the impression that it was in a permanent state of refurbishment with little urgency for any improvement to take place. 

A flash flood hit out of nowhere during this time, despite sitting by the window we were only alerted to this by the all-encompassing thrumming noise that sounded like a generator idling as the grimy film made it nigh on impossible to see what was happening outside. It didn’t take long to pass through the Cambodian checkpoint either and there was a sign on the wall to the effect of ‘no cash required’, there was an absence of shady men with hands full of noted here. Despite only having to travel a few metres to get back in the coach our feet got soaked as a couple of inches of rainwater had accumulated across the concrete.

We arrived in Phnom Penh at about 16.00, but the 8 hours had gone comparatively quickly due to the comfort of the coach, adequate breaks and interesting views.

It was a short tuk tuk journey to the hotel where we were greeted with a glass of tamarind juice, it’s similar to apple juice and very refreshing! After dropping off our bags we headed out for a walk, whilst the car to motorbike ratio is much more even in Cambodia compared to Vietnam crossing the road is still hazardous and they have the same disregard for zebra crossings. There’s a big park near our hotel which seemed like a popular gathering point for locals and there were large groups of runners doing laps.

We didn’t see anything similar in Vietnam and I can’t recall any green spaces in the parts we visited. We happened across a food hall and opted to eat at what looked like the most popular restaurant, as the only white face there I felt comfortable that it was an authentic Cambodian eatery, although they did also have an English menu brought over that covered about half of the options. I went for the traditional Khmer noodle soup from the original menu and jo went for the crab and papaya salad. I think that’s they got our orders mixed up as they came over and asked jo if she liked spice, she replied ‘no spice’; they then placed the noodle soup in front of her, we moved it across to me and although nicely flavoured did not have a hint of spice. Jo’s meal then appeared and was rendered almost inedible as far as she was concerned due to a healthy seasoning of spice. She made a good effort, eating almost all of the crab meat. I’m not sure how many crabs went into the dish but there were an awful lot of spiky legs sticking out!

Whilst we were sat at the table eating we had the first instance of a child begging for money which made me very uncomfortable, as I hate children and I hate giving away money.

As jo wanted to visit Chinatown we took a half hour taxi ride to the heart of Chinatown. It was the most chaotic place in Vietnam we’d visited and after 15 minutes of experiencing this in the sweltering heat Jo decided that there were better places to be. So we took another half hour taxi ride mostly back the way we came to the Vietnam history museum. We were on a roll…when we got there we discovered that it was shut on Mondays.

Fortunately the national zoo and botanical gardens were next door, and they were open!

The zoo was incredibly quiet considering entry was about £2 each and there was a broad array of animals, unfortunately most of their conditions probably wouldn’t pass muster in Western and Northern Europe.

Despite our detours around the city there was still time for a couple of hours by the pool before the evening meal. We’d booked a pizza restaurant (yes, I know, Vietnam isn’t exactly famed for their pizza), but it was with a popular chain and supposed to be good. The pizzeria had a high end feel to the place and some interesting toppings. I went for a half and half pizza with chicken teriyaki and garlic beef, it was average and served lukewarm, which I believe was on purpose rather than it just standing around. I had a beer with it advertised as ‘honey wine’, it was a slightly sweet beer and pretty tasty – nicer than the name suggested anyway.

With no particular plans for the day we decided to walk in the vague direction of Chinatown, stop at a coffee shop and take a taxi the rest of the way. However shortly after leaving the the hotel a man carrying a wooden yoke started chatting to us as we headed in the same direction and asked if we were going to the war museum, we hadn’t actually realised but it was just round the corner. He placed his yoke on my shoulder and pretended to walk away, it was much heavier than it looked! There must be a technique to it as I wouldn’t have fancied walking more than few metres with it, especially in the heat.

We bought a couple of overpriced coconuts off him, the coconut water was very refreshing and helped lighten his load slightly. Stopped at a cafe for an iced coffee and pate baguettes and a croissant before heading to the war remnants museum. Despite knowing the general facts the individual and personal exhibits were difficult viewing. Even though it was obviously many years before I was born I’m glad that the British weren’t explicitly involved given the groundless involvement, millions of civilians killed during the conflict and debilitating legacy of the land mines and chemical weapons.

We ate out in a proper restaurant for the first time since visiting Vietnam, and at least went to a proper Vietnamese restaurant. My main dish was snakehead fish, and though it was nice it wasn’t as good as the similar dish I had on the street in Hanoi a few days previously. Jo loved her prawn and gourd soup and salted chicken.

I woke up with a cold (possibly Covid), potentially caught from our tour guide at the Ho Chi Minh museum who should’ve taken a sick day, with a long day ahead of this as we were going to visit the Cu Chi tunnels and take a boat trip down the Mekong.

We skipped breakfast after our food tour the previous evening. The minibus arrived early and proved that legally you are allowed to write ‘luxury travel’ on any vehicle. The interior was grubby, the seatbelts broken and the aircon lacklustre. Our fellow tourists were six Filipino women c.60 years old who enjoyed listening and singing along to modern pop songs, and were apparently trying to set a collective record of most photos, videos and phone calls made by a single tour group. They were very friendly and insisted we have some of their dry and flavourless Filipino snacks. They did also send us off with a bag of bbq flavour peanuts which were actually quite moreish.

Our guide, Tom, was diligent and knew his stuff, even if he wasn’t exactly Billy Graham. We had a whistle-stop tour of the tunnels which included which included the opportunity to travel through up to 100m of tunnels with the opportunity to exit every 20m. Jo got through approximately 4m before deciding it was too claustrophobic and forcing a reverse. I went through 60m and decided that was enough as I’d started to drip with sweat and the hunched position was tough on the knees. There were up to 250km of tunnels built, staggering that this was done by hand often under the cover of darkness and with up to 3 levels in places.

Following this we had a decent lunch and travelled for a couple of hours to our location we took a sampan to an island on the Mekong where we had a number of opportunities to buy souvenirs and tip locals. We tasted some honey tea (delicious), bought some candies ginger, listened to some Vietnamese throat singing whilst enjoying tropical fruits. The Vietnamese art form of ‘Ca trù’ singing was inscribed in 2009 on the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, presumably so no one outside of Vietnam would be allowed to perform (and therefore listen to) it.

We then had a rowing boat ride 700m down a narrow tributary and arrived at a coconut candy shop, we sampled some freshly made peanut flavoured which was delicious.

I had a sip of some snake rice wine, which was actually nicer than some dried banana rice wine I had earlier.

We had a long journey back to the hotel and after getting back bought some snacks and paracetamol and had an early night.

We went down to see what the buffet breakfast was like at the Orchids, mediocre compared to what was served up in Hanoi. No pastries on offer, however tauntingly, they were available for purchase in the lobby cafe adjacent to the buffet hall. 

The weather this morning was much nicer than what we were greeted with on arrival and although it was hot wasn’t quite as sticky as in Hanoi. We went for a wander to the river, stopping for a browse along ‘Book Street’ before enjoying an iced tea overlooking the Mekong during the hottest part of the day.

The traffic is slightly more ordered than in Hanoi with a higher density of traffic lights. The whole city has more of a European capital city vibe, with skyscrapers and shops selling global brands. The pavements are much wider and clearer, with the downside being that some motorcyclists use it as their own thoroughfare.

We skipped lunch as we had a food tour booked for the evening and based on our previous experience we would be presented with enough food for several meals. We met our guide ‘Albert’, who rather than being an 85 year old white man was actually a 20 year old Vietnamese student. He said that many tourists made the mistake of having a normal lunch and then struggling after the first stop. At the end of the tour he said he was impressed with how much we consumed 😎

Jo let Albert know about my aversion to egg and hers to coriander prior to the start of the tour, which we were both grateful for as each would have been faced with our Bete Noire’s otherwise. The first stop involved two different types of pancakes containing beef, prawns and mung beans (and ordinarily an egg), which I wouldn’t necessarily have associated with Vietnam previously. He also went through the 7 or 8 green salad items that accompany the dish and we discovered that Thai-basil tastes nothing like normal basil – it has an unpleasant anise flavour.

We were struggling by the time we reached the penultimate stop of beef with greens and noodles, scallops, shrimp on a stick and VFC Vietnamese Fried Chicken but made a strong effort. Fortunately the last stop was avocado and lingon ice cream which we were still able to eat. We got the ice cream from a long, narrow food market where they were selling almost every kind of food.

I noticed that lots of people still referred to the city as Saigon, I asked Albert which name was preferred and he basically said that either could be used without offence and people just said Saigon because it’s less of a mouthful. I guess this is similar to Derry/Londonderry where Londonderry is the correct name but it’s easier to just say Derry.

The Vietnamese pride themselves on eating almost anything, our guide in Ninh Binh said that when the Americans came to Vietnam they brought 2000 dogs, but when they left there were only 400 – read into that what you will.

Based on the previous day we were braced for getting soaked for the duration of the tour but we were lucky with the weather and the only rain was when we were relaxing by the partially enclosed hotel swimming pool.