Thailand (Ayuthaya and Kanchanaburi)

Hello from the flagging Bloggers! I got a free hour internet with the second hand book I just bought so thought I'd make hay... have yet to write about amazing Angkor or buzzing Bangkok but will move on to more recent adventures...

We headed to Ayuthaya, north of Bangkok and Thailand's capital between the 14th and 18th centuries, on the 20th. Fantastic, crumbled Wats and Chedis and Praangs (read... ruins), all sombre and eerie amid falling leaves and sitting on an island where three rivers converge. The natural moat kept Ayuthaya safe for 400 years but eventually the Burmese sacked the place and sent the Thai monarchy south first to Thonbury and then Bangkok. Anyway, we had a fabulous 'Indiana Jones' experience when trapped in the central praang (read very tall tower) by a spectacular afternoon thunderstorm. I happened to be downstairs in the poorly lit, tiny treasure chamber when the lights started flickering on and off with the storm and the wooden boards started slamming open and shut in the wind. There wasn't a 'Mummy' waiting to seal us in its tomb but it felt like there could have been... Magic!

We are now in Kanchanaburi of 'Bridge over the River Kwai' fame, living it up in a wonderful little house on the river (thanks Elaine - good one). The semitary was moving... lots of little quotes from hurting mums and ages generally well below mine. Peaceful-sad-dignified.

Yesterday (another Elaine tip) we got to stroke Thai tigers at the 'Tiger Temple.' I've always wanted to see one of these magnificent animals up close, and have felt some urgency to do so with the fear that they might soon disappear altogether, but was a little hesitant about this one. I just wasn't certain about the ethics of getting photographed with a captive tiger... I gather that the tigers there are the orphans and rescued hurt of the wild who would otherwise be lost to poachers and lost habitat. 80% of the tigers there now were bred in captivity from these rescued animals and hopes are to start reintroducing cubs into the wild. Justification for my photo-moment? I'm not sure. But they did seem very well fed and cared for. It must cost an arm and a leg (not literally, or at least I am intact) to keep them all fed.

The hilarity of the temple (it's run by Buddhist monks) is the variation of animails they have taken in... the tigers are the main attraction but wondering around at random together and munching on potatoes dropped from trucks are cattle, water buffalo, a camel, chickens, boars, dear and (on leashes admittedly and only when being moved around) the tigers themselves! Very much the 'lions lying down with the lambs.'

Must close... the dubious oily coating on this keyboard is making this hard on the fingers! Tomorrow we leave Kanchanaburi for Bangkok... on the 26th we depart for Canada and the BIG (at least in miles) portion of our journey.

Love to all,
Nick (tired and unapolagetic about grammar and flow at this point)

Cambodia (Killing Fields and S21, Phnom Phen)

Hello again! We’ve been out of blog action for a wee bit as internet in Cambodia turned out to be pretty slow going… That said, there wouldn’t have been a great deal of time to write anyway, given the things we’ve had to cram into a very small time. Lonely Planet talks about Cambodia being a place of contrasts and that is probably a good place to start – the Khmer people have been through a peculiar brand of horror which I really couldn’t conceive despite the rather disturbing cinematic education that is “The Killing Fields.” Spending even the few days that we did there, however, and it’s just not possible to be unaffected by the magnitude of the loss suffered under Polpot… I don’t know a great deal about mass psychology but evidently noone has been left untouched.

What makes it at once heart-warming AND heart-wrenching is extraordinary resilience, optimism and humour of the Khmer people. Whether it be tour guides with ‘missing’ uncles and brothers or the crippled victims of land-mines with little or no state support selling guidebooks, it feels like you are somewhere almost everyone has the RIGHT for a chip on their shoulder and, strangely-beautifully-soulshakingly, noone seems to carry one. So yes, we have seen the Killing Fields and S21 and the photographs of the victims and it is an exceptionally nightmarish story but I'd rather talk about the Khmer people who are, in a word, humbling.

Sleepy in Saigon

We've just had our day at the Reunification Palace and wondering round sweltering, lusty, frenetic Saigon. The evening rain has just made things more humid and the place feels oddly appropriate for the end of our Vietnamese soujourn.

So this is just a little not from a tired traveller that we're off bright and early to the Cu Chi tunnels tomorrow for a little Viet Cong action before heading across the border and into Cambodia - it's a fair bus trip to the crossover and then another 5 hours to Phnom Phen so lots of bus-time.

Not sure what web connectedness is like over there... I'm guessing pretty good like in this end of the world but if not, we'll write you from Bangkok!

Love to all.

Mekong Delta

Yesterday we took a fairly epic day tour of the Mekong Delta - the point where the mighty Mekong, having wound its way down from Tibetan China through Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, meets the sea. The delta system consists of 9 little rivers (each with a dragon) and between sit islands built up with delightfully ramshackle fishing villages and little fruit farms. Here we are in 'traditional' Vietnamese garb paddling down one of the irrigation canals on one of the islands (where we were introduced to a staggering variety of fruit - Lindsey will remember these better then I but they included the infamous 'Durian', which is apparantly less stinky in Vietnam then in Thailand due to fewer chemical additives. I'm personally not convinced).

Motorbikes (Xe-om) around Nha Trang

Here are some quick snaps of our whirl around country Nha Trang on a motorbike... the most fun you can have with your helmet on...

Learning how to weave Vietnamese style... These ladies can finish a 4 metre weave with consistent detail in 2 hours (that's without an overlocker, Gran/Mum)

Handing out treats (read 'junk food') to the 'Little Monks' at the Buddhist orphanage. As you can see his head is shaved except for a forlock - when he turns 16 he has the option of either remaining in the community as a monk or returning to the world. Some of the kids of 7ish on had started wearing robes and were astonishingly calm and serene for such young things, but before that age they seem to be completely free to be children as the pic suggests. Notice Miss Bates in classic 'positive reinforcement' teacher pose.

Rice paddies! I love them. I want to decorate a room with pictures SOLELY of rice paddies... Lindsey has suggested the bathroom.

'Tropic Thunder' - Lindsey on a motorbike. Note the white knuckles grasping the handlebar on the back.

Love to all

My Son

So here we are at My Son, about 35 km and a hired car (and driver too! - we shared the cost with a bunch of travel mates so it ended up being much cheaper then the advertised 'optional tour' our company offered) away from Hoi An in central Vietnam. It is the religious centre for the Champa people, the original inhabitants of central and southern Vietnam (or at least they were here before the Vietnamese people, arriving - from Indonesia? Malaysia? noone really knows) by the 2nd century AD. Heavily influenced by Indian culture (like the Khmer people of Cambodia) they worshipped the 3 major Hindu deities Brahma, Vishnu and (especially) Siva. As such their religious architecture and sculpture is in marked contrast to that of the Vietnamese who gradually occupied Cham territory from Northern Vietnam from the 14th century onwards and whose culture is more heavily indebted to their Chinese neighbours. The Champa people are still around today as a Vietnamese ethnic minority though the majority have now converted to Islam.

Anyway, the ruins of the religious centre were mysterious-haunting - set amid the huge fan-like leaves of great tropical plants and overgrown with vegetation in misty-humid hills and (because we had hired a car rather then a tour bus) were an eerie quiet for the enigmatic statues. There are a few tablets of texts scattered amid the ruins in a language noone speaks and which may never be deciphered, and the whole overgrown temple feeling has one feeling a little 'Indiana Jones.' Sadly, like so much cultural history around the world, the ruins have been wrecked by the often random destructiveness of 20th century warfare: for the majority of the ruins (not pictured) centuries of slow, romantic decay were given a rather major push when they were obliterated by US bombs during the Vietnam war.

It was interesting that we should visit a place of lost cultural memory on the day we lost some of our own photographs... the mystical nature of the place was a fitting one in which to think about time, the present, life, memory and everything. But enough philosophising - we're about to head off on xe-om (motorbikes) to visit a huge Buddha statue!

Love to all.

Hue: Sleeper Cabins and Country Walks

Much has happened since our last post. Firstly, we've survived the overnight train from Hanoi to Hue. Our tickets were NOT what you would call first class. There were six of us to a cabin - two sets of narrow bunk beds stacked three high with just enough space inbetween to stand without your shoulders quite grazing the beds. You can smoke on the train here and they do not like it when you open the window. Other than the space and air quality issues it was fantastic. The rocking train lulled us to sleep and we woke to a sunrise over the rice paddie- beautiful!

The first day in Hue we went for a "cruise" on a dragon boat and visited the Citadel. The Citadel was not what we expected- much more lavish and intrecate then any fort I've seen. I can't do the beauty or history justice so will suggest you google it.

Day two consisted of a rather high budget motorcycle tour of the tombs around Hue. Nick and I decided that Tu Duc's tomb only looked like it was about 2km from the hotel- easily walkable. We set off on foot along the river and in though the outskirts of town where tourists are far more rare. By the time we'd walked about 3km people had stopped offering us motorbike rides and the streets had fallen off our map. Eventually we found ourselves along a dirt road in the countryside of Hue. Totally lost we kept walking in the general direction of the tomb. We encounted two young (maybe 6 years old) monks out for a walk with their friend. We bowed to them (as you do). They very solomly bowed back... and burst into giggles as soon as they had passed us. Evenutally we had lost all hope and stopped to ask a lady how we could get back to town. She said "Tu Duc", grabbed me firmly by the arm, led us down the road and pointed along a narrow path throught the trees. She then gave me a firm push in that direction. It seemed we weren't going back to town. It was nothing less than devine intervention that guided us to the tomb situated 8km from our hotel, but eventually we did arrive.
Tu Duc's tomb was more like an estate than a tomb. The Vietnamise are very wise, so they build their tomb to be enjoyed as a place of residence durnig life, not just death. After our 8km walk we didn't have much time before we had to find some motorcycles to take us back to the hotel for our departure to Hoi An...