Welcome to Cambodia....

Sheim and I left the rest of the crowd in Saigon and headed to Sihanoukville in Cambodia. It's a bit of a divergence from my original plan, which was to go straight Kep in the south, but I couldn't find enough information about how reliable the border crossing was, so I decided to play it safe. Onto Kep by bus tomorrow.

We arrived in Cambodia with some trepidation, as the was setting, an incredible storm set in. The lightning was scaring some people on the bus, and many of the locals moved into the aisle to see where we were going....which worried me somewhat!

The people and the place soon changed my mind.

We met a guy called Sohan from the US as we got off the bus and we shared a tuk tuk (cheapy cheapersons) to the backpacker district, so we're knocking around with him for a few days now.

Day 1 (yesterday) we decided to go to the beach, seeing as Sihanoukville is essentially a beach resort, I don't think there's much else to do here.

As soon as you step foot onto the beach, you're overrun with a hoarde of ladies and children selling massages, pedicures, manicures, threading, bracelets, scarves, sarongs, fruit, crab, lobster, sunglasses....the list goes on.

It's pretty annoying, but I've been finding the children absolutely hilarious, and have fallen prey to may of the hawkers already. Their english is amazing, which I didn't expect! Here's some snippets of conversations I've had:

"I don't want a bracelet thank you.

Why?

I just don't want one.

You don't want one? Then buy two!"

"Why you not buy from me and you buy from her? I asked you first (lie). You're a very naughty girl, you see what happens when you don't buy from me!" more about this particular kid in a minute.

"Open your heart, open your wallet"

They're fabulous.

On the beach today I decided that I'd quite like a bracelet from the 'angry boy' as I dubbed him, with his name on it. They sit there and braid them for you on the spot. I wanted a memento of him. I'd seen him wandering past a couple of times shooting icy looks at me, so I knew he was around. I finally spotted him and beckoned for him to come over....I actually think he would have ignored me had his friend not shouted at him to come....lose a sale through pride...hell no!

He looked incredibly inconvenienced as he wandered slowly over to me, and even more so when we quibbled over price, I wanted to pay $2, he wanted $3, no remarks over being a cheapskate please, haggling is standard!! But all of a sudden he looked over his shoulder, and like a bolt of lightning, he was gone. I looked in the direction he'd glanced and saw a stern looking man holding a stick walking in our general direction. Alost all the hawkers had disappeared...the ones that remained looked mighty nervous.

We found out later that he was a policeman patrolling the beach. They don't like the hawkers harrassing the tourists, and will even go to the extent of walloping them with the stick. No wonder the kids were terrified.

Eventually angry boy came back....with protection, a tenacious little girl who had sold me some bracelets the day before, she was quite the cheeky little madam, we were in good company. I Asked him his name and he told me it was Pon, so I asked him to braid that one the bracelet. I picked my colours and he disappeared off to do the bracelet...eager not to be caught with us by the policeman.

Time passed and I wondered if he was ever coming back, then I spotted them walking down the beach towards us. Of course, the time to pay was upon me:

"Two dollars.

Three!!

Two!

Three!!

Oh bloody hell, ok then"

It was worth it for the beaming smile and hug that I got afterwards. I paid a dollar for that hug.

I also met a lovely lady doing manicures and pedicures...so I got a pedicure yesterday and a manicure today. I've never felt more girly in my life. Her name was Sun.

I hope the people in Kep are as interesting, the people are making this country for me so far :)

I'm Back!

Sorry about that brief interlude, the places I'm travelling through in Vietnam haven't really cottoned onto the net cafe culture yet....but I've found one! Huzzah!

Since I left you I've been travelling South through Vietnam, an overnight sleeper train to Hue from Hanoi was fun, we met 2 great guys who happened to be in our cabin, Erik from Sweden and Ben from Derby. It happened to be a Swedish holiday that night and since we're travelling with Sheima (Swedish also) and Erik, we thought beers would be a good idea. Every time the lady with the trolley came past we ordered 5 beers (I'm pretty sure she stopped by our cabin more than was strictly necessary).

Then the last beer run came....and we had a sad :(. That was until a knock came on the door and there was the trolley lady, with a plastic bag containing 5 cans of beer. You have to laugh.

Hue was lovely, we spent 2 nights and visited the Citadel. Hue is the old imperial capital of Vietnam, and the citadel was the home and seat of government for the last emperor of the Nguyen dynasty. It was badly damaged by US bombing during the Vietnam war..but still retains much of its grandeur.

Now in Hoi An, having travelled by very plush sleeper bus, I hope the long-ass journey from Hoi An to Saigon will be as comfortable. Hoi An is absolutely beautiful, as many of you may know, it's also the best place to come for cheap made-to-order clothing. In fact, in an hour I'll be picking up 2 pairs of trousers and a shirt that I was measured up for yesterday. About 12 quid each for the trousers and 13 or 14 for the shirt. I'll let you know how I get on with that.

Hoi An captures you, it reminds me of a slightly busier (and drier) Luang Prabang. The cafes and restaurants by the river are gorgeous, and most serve 'fresh beer' which is essentially home-made beer that costs roughly 15p a glass. It's not very strong, but it does the job. Last night I had a lovely meal, probably the most expensive I've had in Vietnam (or anywhere), costing a whole 4 pounds. This was for 2 GIANT prawns that I went over and handpicked from a bucket. I named them Bob and Dave...they were delicious.

I was considering stopping in another place, Dalat or Na Trang on the way down, but I may just stay and chill here for a couple more days and then go straight to Saigon, then swiftly onto Cambodia.

Enough from me, to finish up this one, I thought I'd introduce you to some of the guys I'm travelling with at the moment:

Pat:

Pat's from Tasmania, though I believe he was born in Victoria. He has an amazing talent of being able to cry on cue (or at least 1-2 minutes after cue) and can retain the lyrics to any and every song ever played to him. Sheima introduced me to Pat on my second to last day in Hanoi.

Sheima:

Swedish, but her mother is Polish and father is Iraqi. She's a champion snake kisser...don't believe me? Add her on Facebook and check out the photo evidence :D. We met in Hanoi after I'd been wandering for 3 hours.

Ben:

From Derby, die hard Rams fan and an excellently English sarcastic sense of humour. He's still mourning the loss of his ipod, don't mention it to him, he may have to shed a tear. We met on the night train from Hanoi to Hue.

Erik:

From Sweden, has been afforded the unfortunate nickname 'White Supremacist' due to his eagle tattoo, despite having studied human rights (or something like that). Rumours abound that he enjoys shagging animals...I can't imagine where that came from....

We also met in the night train.

Emma:

Is from New Zealand, we love listening to her vowels, the kiwi accent is muchly fun :D. Would we take the mick? NEVER!! She loves dancing and singing along to ANY music you put on, a great laugh! We met her in Hue on our first night.

As is the way with backpacking, we'll be losing Emma tonight, and Pat possibly tomorrow. I think Erik and Ben are hanging on for a while, and a guy called Chris that we met in Hanoi will probably be joining us soon. Also, we're meeting Steph (who I met in Luang Prabang) tonight at one of the only bars in town.....mad.

Hopefully it won't be quite as long between this and my next update, I'm sure Saigon will be pretty good interwebs-wise :D

** Update**

This was written before my photo disaster and so is bit old! I'm in Saigon now, and Pat, Ben and Erik are arriving tomorrow...a wee reunion of a sort...though we saw them all 2 days ago...