Thursday 1 January 2009

Day 8 – Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh City

January 1st 2009

Happy New Year to everyone, we ended up staying at the hotel and enjoying the party last night. Was all a bit strange, a 2 piece band from the Philippines – who'd obviously got the gig because of their vast range of English language pop songs, ahem – a 2 piece Cambodian “pop” band, with a female vocalist who genuinely hurt the eardrums, and some much more appropriate Cambodian music and dancing.

Sat with some more pleasant Sydneyites – a made up word I'm sure but gets the gist across I hope. Cut a long story short, a strange evening ended with some good fireworks, incredibly excited hotel staff, and lots and lots of noise!

Onto today and unfortunately Sarah's the one not too great at the moment. Nothing that won't straighten itself out soon enough, but we've been quite lucky in getting a day and half at the temples, if we'd overlapped with our illnesses we'd probably have seen nothing but the pictures in the guidebooks!

We leave the hotel around 11:30am to head for the airport. Sitting in our hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap seems almost like a dream, just a few dusty streets, locals on motorbikes, and the odd luxury hotel dotted around. I don't think it'll stay like that for long, one of the Aussies last night said Cambodia was like Vietnam 10 years ago, well I've had a trip from the airport to show me that the current charm of Siem Reap is going to be replaced with, well, something different that's for sure.

Can't remember what strange quirk of Asia number we're up to. Having arrived a good 2.5 hours before our Vietnam Airlines flight to HCMC (guidebook coolspeak for Ho Chi Minh City), check-in is again a 2 minute painless experience, no queues, our boarding passes say we're due to board at 13:55 for our flight at 14:25 so all's well. $50 departure tax for the 2 of us is a bit steep I have to say, and they may say they take credit cards but don't believe a word of it, carry cash! By the time we get through security, about 10 minutes later our flight's on the board. 14:55 – eh? Not 30 minutes delayed, the timetable has actually changed to 14:55. Don't ask, I've no idea...

The flight, our first turbo prop of the trip but I suspect not our last passes quickly enough and after some glimpses of rivers and delta (it might be hot, but it's tropical so often very cloudy of course) we land at HCMC. First impressions of the runway area are like someone's painted over a 'Nam war film (the guidebooks call it “The American War” by the way, which I found amusing!) - rows upon rows of steel reinforced concrete arches – they'll be called something specific, but I can't bring to mind what. I'm therefore not expecting much when we hit the terminal but it's brand spanking new and, surprise surprise, not only are we through immigration in about 5 minutes but our bags have already done a circuit of the luggage belt waiting for us. Our driver is waiting for us at the exit – keep on saying phew and meaning it!

The drive to the hotel is interesting to say the least. Even less road rules than Cambodia it seems but with seemingly a million more vehicles. Nobody seems to get in the slightest bit stressed though as push bikes, motor bikes, cars, buses all jossle at major 4-way junctions with no traffic lights, Sarah comments that this would never work in Europe and of course she's right, no chance.

Our hotel is very good, perhaps what you'd describe as the first truly functional or “city” hotel we've stayed in, but if I had a room this size in London half the time I'd be very happy.

I think we'll be spending the evening here tonight so we can both fully recharge and get back on our feet for some sight seeing tomorrow. Our hotel is perfectly positioned right in the centre of District 1 and appears to be just a few minutes walk from the River Saigon itself – well we'll see about the few minutes anyway.

(Thank you to everyone who has said nice things about this blog either through comment or email, it makes the writing so much easier. I've just added a small selection of Bangkok photos which can be accessed through the Flickr badge on the right hand side. I've got many many more of course but for info the camera really struggled with the light conditions, while it was cloudy the sun was still very bright so my camera wanted to use flash even for distant shots which was obviously useless, sometimes then they might look a bit “gloomy” - which is a shame)

1 comment:

  1. Still with you all the way and enjoying every minute. Love Mum xx

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