Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City

I've just arrived from an epic journey from Koh Rong Island - Sihanoukville - Phnom Penh - Saigon.

It was a mission, first the boat from Koh Rong island arrived back to the Sihanoukville at 7ish, and being low season, thought it was going to be relatively easy to book a bus ticket back to Phnom Penh. Indeed I was wrong and the only bus going back to Phnom Penh was fully booked. I really wanted to get out of Cambodia and the quickest way of doing that was traveling back to Phnom Penh in the evening, arriving about 1am and then waking up at 630 to catch the boat down the Mekong towards Saigon.

Having missed the bus our only way back to Phnom Penh that night was to arrange a taxi, we ended up paying $40 USD between four of us only a couple of bucks more than the bus ticket for a more comfortable journey.

Having slept for 5-6 hours I woke up waiting for our bus outside the designated hotel, it was supposed to pick me up at 7am, but didn't actually arrive til almost 8am, which meant... yes you guessed it, we missed our connecting boat down the Mekong! So instead of the bus driver taking us to the port, it instead bombed it down alongside the Mekong for a good 2-3 hours looking for the missed boat trying to catch it up.

It managed to catch up with the boat and I crossed into the Mekong waters of Vietnam, coming to a stand still at a small town called Chau Doc. Vietnam here I am... Saigon still had to wait a few more hours as we had to get our connecting bus. Another 4-5 hour journey, which wasn't too bad, but the boys and I were the only foreigners on the bus, and we stood out like a sore thumb. It was so bad, this woman in front of us was staring.... seriously just staring at us through the whole journey... here's a picture of what she was doing. Note: She didn't know I took this photo....

Everyones out to make a quick buck!

I've now crossed into Vietnam and leaving Cambodia has come to a bit of a relief after two weeks in the country. I loved Siem Reap and Koh Rong, but Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville wasn't really my cup of tea.

There's a huge striking difference in poverty between Cambodia and Vietnam. There are less people hassling you in Saigon, whereas in Cambodia, someone is trying to sell you something at a ridiculous price.

They really take advantage of the US dollar and the foreigner. If you've ever been to Cambodia you know that you're being charged 2-3 times more than the local which after 14 days gets really frustrating! One downside to being a backpacker in a foreign country.

Koh Rong - Monkey Island

I arrived in Sihanoukville feeling pretty ill, lucky for me at Serendipity beach there wasn't anything special to do here except drinking and playing pool, nothing that I hadn't done for the last month so it was good to rest up.

I was quite disappointed at Sihanoukville, the beaches were dirty, you had to pay to sit on the chairs by the beach and it was as though I'd arrived in Magaluf as all i could see were bars selling cheap booze. Cheapest price I saw for a beer was 50cents!! It seems that people are now using sihanoukville as a passage to islands such as Koh Rong and Koh Rong Soleum, which was exactly what I intended to do as well.

Our early morning boat left at 730am, and it was a 2 hour slow boat ride to Koh Rong. After the horrible bus ride the day before I could appreciate any new form of transport. We had a few choices of islands to chose from, but Monkey Island resort on Koh Rong was recommended by a few people at Sihanoukville and it was an awesome choice.

Monkey Island resort has only been open for less than a year, it has 19 bungalows situated along the beach front. Our bungalow was $15 between four of us and was 10 meters from the beach. The bungalow was very basic, just two large double beds, a private bathroom but with no air condition or fan, but for one night and $3.25 I couldn't complain.

After checking in and dumping my bags, it was time to soak up some rays. This was the real travelling life I was after, away from the hustle and bustle of cities that I had been seeing for most of the last month, away from places where people want to earn a quick buck, trying to sell you food, manicures, pedicures, paintings, bracelets, books, weed and even tuk tuk rides! You can't believe how peaceful it is, stepping out of your bungalow and not be hounded by the nearest local to get in their bloody tuk tuk!! It was great to get away from all of this, the beach was so secluded I could count the number of people on the beach with one hand. The was sun beaming down on my shoulders as i strolled up the beach, apparently we just caught the beginning of some gorgeous weather, having just missed three weeks of heavy rain.

The guys at Monkey Island recommended a couple of things to do on koh Rong, one was to walk 5 mins to a small waterfall, it was very small but was worth the walk through smelly water to have a cold soak and cool down. But it was the evening swim which was pretty amazing. Come 9-10pm the four of us went for a dip. Pretty damn cold but with a pair of snorkelling goggles, youd put your head into the water, move your hands around and the water would come alight. The micro organisms in the water react to movement and light up the water very similarly to fire flies, definelty worth the cold swim!!


Sun rise at Koh Rong

Build Your Future Today Orphanage

As part of my travelling, an important part of my itinerary was to include some sort of charity work / volunteering.

We were extremely fortunate to stay at the nicest guesthouse, Bun Kao Guesthouse. If anyone is going to Siem Reap, I'd highly recommened this guesthouse. The owner, Bun kao, genuinely one of the nicest people I've ever met, so much so I now call him uncle Bun Kao, previously worked for BFT for 10 years, an organisation that helps with orphans left from the wars that have torn Cambodia apart.


http://www.bunkaoguesthouse.com/

We had an informal meeting with Sedtha, the director of the organisation to get some information and background of the company. There are lots of orphanage charities in Cambodia and not all are genuine so it was good to have a talk with Sedtha and for him to explain how he came about setting up the orphanage.

BFT originally started out as an orphanage for those who had lost their parents during the time of the Khmer Rouge and war with Vietnam, but it soon turned into more than this. It now also helps with community projects and schools outside of siem reap. My first taste of volunteering came in the form of teaching English, not my strongest subject by all means, but I said to myself to give anything a go. 


I got plunged straight into the deep end, I was teaching a range of kids aged 13-17 and the lesson was about past and present tense.... I almost froze!! They had formulas on how the tenses worked and I was completely baffled! It was a huge struggle but managed to scrape through with some dignity, I had learnt that teaching English was definitely not one of my strong points, let's hope the kids are better off with my advice and not worse off!

The following days volunteering was even more rewarding than the first day. The children at school had just returned from a 3 month holiday and at the beginning of each new school year the children's BMI is measured to keep an eye on their health and if there are any signs malnutrition. It was an early start of 630 and a 2 hour drive in the back of a pick up truck through some of the roughest and remote roads out of siem reap.


Crossing potholes like this....

We arrived at a school of about 150 children and after having a spot of lunch, we began measuring their height, weighing them and measuring their arms. The children were very happy to see new faces at the school and there was an immediate soft spot for all of them! An extremely rewarding day, and something to pursue in the future if I'm in Siem Reap again.

http://www.center-bft.org/

Angkor Wat

Angkor Wat... a whole day of temples.

Was very templed out after this, but some amazing sights.

Poipet

Getting to Cambodia was our first real taste of being on our own... And it sure showed, 4 headless chickens in south east Asia!

There are a couple of ways of crossing the border from Thailand to Cambodia, one of the most popular is to use the Poipet border crossing.

Poipet itself is a very weird place, it's literally a small stretch of road which has a several casinos. Gambling is illegal in both Thailand and Cambodia, but as Poipet is inbetween the two it is deemed legal to gamble here. You get lots of Cambodians and Thais that come into the area to gamble, but it's not like las Vegas where there are shiny lights and attractions on the road, Poipet is a dirt road, with huge potholes. Either side of the road are casinos with the worst taste in decor you can imagine.

As I've read in some guides, the best thing about poipet is leaving it!

Trying to leave it was in itself difficult! We crossed into poipet early evening and being clever thought of having a spot of dinner before we moved across into Cambodia.

It was even harder to organise transport to Siem Reap from Poipet as it was a public holiday and the taxi driver was charging us $50US!! But as we attempted to cross into Cambodia, the border had shut and we were refused entry, so we had to take shelter in Poipet for the evening before setting off first thing in the morning.

Possibly a huge blessing in disguise!

22 hours on a train....

We left Penang for Bangkok Sunday morning, embarking on an epic 22 hour sleeper train. Having family in Malaysia has made the first 3 weeks seem a holiday, relatives and friends transporting me around, taking me to eat local foods at local cost rate making sure that I wasn't going to get ripped off, but getting on this train made me realise, this is IT... I'm on my own, with the rest of the guys of course... but we were going into unchartered waters!

The train was initially delayed for 50mins, but after finally boarding the train I was extremely scpetical, the train wasn't clean and had a few cockroaches running around, albeit small ones, I guess this was the reality check and I had to just get on with it!

Just before reaching Hat Yai, the border for Malaysia and Thailand, a waitress walked through the train with her old, tacky, plastic laminated menu asking people what they would like for dinner. RESULT!!...Just before getting on at Penang, I'd stocked up on snacks, fruit and some bakery items at the local Tescos, but to get hot food on the train was a result!! To top this, after passing through Hat Yai and having dinner, the train inspector came round setting out every ones beds, I was pleasantly surprised at the new clean sheets that were provided, and for sure I slept for a good 10hours!...