7/5 Phnom Penh to Chi Phat

7/5/2013: In the morning, I figured out how I was going to get to Myanmar (departing July 10 for Yangon from Phnom Penh), how I was getting out of Myanmar (flight from Mandalay to Bangkok July 20) and then booked my bus ticket to Chi Phat in the Cardamom Mountains. 

Puppy at the guesthouse

Chi Phat (pronounced “chee pat”) is a remote town in southwestern Cambodia and hosts one of the offices of the Wildlife Alliance, an NGO working with communities to preserve their environment by stopping destructive activities and replacing them with ecotours. Chi Phat is the nearest town to the Cardamom Mountains Protected Forest, which is apparently the largest swath of unspoiled rainforest in Southeast Asia, and it is home to around 15 different endangered species, including Asian elephants, tigers, pileated gibbons, and clouded leopards. Chi Phat had been a hub for illegal logging and wildlife trade, but Wildlife Alliance had apparently started to get some traction and was having a positive effect on both the community and the forest.

The bus ride from Chi Phat took longer than expected, and I was dropped off at Andoung Touk at around 6pm. From there, I had to take a little "remork moto" ride and then a 40 minute motorbike taxi to Chi Phat, farther inland and only accessible by a muddy, sketchy dirt road. The motorbike ride cost me only $6. The driver went pretty fast despite the slippery muddy conditions and I was holding on tight the entire way. The ride coincided with the sunset, which was beautiful in the green rural countryside. Lots of farms and just natural forest, and all the people smiled and waved as we passed. 

The driver dropped me off at the “ferry” to get me across the river, which was actually just two canoes with some wooden slats secured on top of them to form sort of a catamaran. It cost 25 cents to get across. Just a 5 minute walk down the main street and I was at the visitor center for the Wildlife Alliance Chi Phat office. The town was extremely small – the guide says around 500 families – and it is very poor and undeveloped. The houses are all simple wood houses, some of them falling apart, and there is no electricity during part of the day. The person at the visitor center set me up at a “guesthouse” – just an extra room at one of the houses in town, and the lady picked me up on her motorbike and drove me down the street to her place where I dropped off my bags. The room was up a steep staircase/ladder, and was definitely not sealed off from the outside with plenty of bugs crawling and flying around. It was a soft bed, though, and only $5/night, so it was fine.

I returned to the visitor center for dinner and chatted with some Latvian girls for a bit. I also shopped around in the book of activities offered through the Wildlife Alliance and soon realized that I hadn’t really brought enough money and there was certainly no ATM anywhere nearby. In fact, it would be a 3 hour bus ride to Koh Kong to hit the nearest ATM. I had enough for a 2 day/1 night “trek” in the jungle, but I’d have to book it the next day and wait another day to start that. 

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130705PPToChiPhat?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/4 HCMC to Phnom Penh

Chris and Mimi and I enjoyed a delicious pho breakfast before I caught a cab to the bus stop for my trip to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. After the visit to Angkor Wat (I haven't blogged about it yet) in early June, I had a sense that I really liked Cambodia but that I hadn't gotten a real taste. My plan for this trip was to do a "trek" in the Cardamom mountains.

The bus ride was uneventful, although when we stopped for lunch I chatted with a Korean girl traveling by herself who was on the same bus as me. We said goodbye at the end of the bus ride but then our tuk-tuk drivers took us to the same hostel so we ended up sharing a room to save money.

Jihye agreed to celebrate the 4th of July with me, but we were the only ones celebrating that night and didn't really make a good showing. We first had a beer at a bar called Slur because they were showing Wimbledon but it was two women we had never heard of. Then we went a little off the main street to a seemingly more authentic Cambodian place but it may have been a bit too Cambodian for our tastes. I got some chicken dish that was about 90% bone, and it was smothered in kaffir lime leaves, which I don't like. Jihye's dish was equally disappointing, so we got some ice cream afterwards, and then called it a night. It was a rather disappointing 4th of July.

Photo album: https://picasafweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130704HCMCToPhnomPenh?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/3 Vung Tau

Having seen most of the major sights in HCMC, I decided to head south in a hydrofoil and see Vung Tau, a popular beach town south of HCMC. I first bought a bus ticket for the following day to get to Phnom Penh, then couldn't resist a chocolate croissant and coffee at a Vietnamese cafe (there are many of them, due in part to the 100+ years of French colonial rule). By the time I got on a hydrofoil, it was noon and the last hydrofoil leaving Vung Tau that day was at 4:30, so it was going to be a brief visit.

The hydrofoil was uneventful. The windows weren't really the see-through variety, so I couldn't see much along the river, which was partially the reason I wanted to do the trip. I also got chatted up by a Vietnamese guy who was on summer break from the University of Nebraska. I don't care if he's Vietnamese, I don't want to talk to a cornhusker. Actually he was nice, but I just wanted to zone out and listen to "This American Life" episodes.

We arrived in Vung Tau a little after 1, I booked my 4:30 trip back to HCMC, and then just started walking towards the beach. Since it was mid-week, the place was pretty deserted, so I got a lot of attention from motorbike taxi drivers. I always had at least one guy slowly driving alongside me saying "where you go?"

The beach itself wasn't very impressive, but I'd already read that so I wasn't disappointed. I found a nice little restaurant near the beach and had some seafood with fried noodles. Vung Tau is situated on a peninsula between a big hill to the west and a little hill to the east. My plan was to hike up the big hill, enjoy the view of the town and the ocean, then cool off in the ocean before getting back on a hydrofoil. I ended up not having enough time to hike, but luckily there was a cable car that went almost to the top. The big hill, it turns out, is a major Vietnamese tourist trap. Initially I hated it, thinking it was disgustingly touristy, but eventually came to love the cheesiness of the ostrich farm, go kart track, and man-made waterfall. In a way, it was an opportunity to see what Vietnamese tourists enjoy. I couldn't really get a good view of everything from the top, but I still got some good shots of the ocean below. I was stopped by a man in a golf cart on my way back to the cable car station and he informed me that the circus animal show was about to start, but I sadly had to decline because I had to catch my hydrofoil.

I returned to Ho Chi Minh City, and Chris and Mimi and I scarfed some banh mi sandwiches as an appetizer then had some wraps and other small plates that were presented in a way similar to sushi but involved Vietnamese food.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130703VungTau?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/2 Mekong Delta Scooter Tour

Based on recommendations from Chris and Mimi, I decided to book a tour with Vietnam Vespas. The tour was to involve driving motorbikes through the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. I was picked up in the morning from Chris and Mimi's apartment and driven out into the suburbs where it was safer for me to drive a motorbike. There I met Steve, the owner, and he watched me test drive a motorbike and so I could prove my proficiency. I met the only other customer for the day who was from Cambodia and her name was Akim. She was doing the tour because she was considering starting a similar company in Siem Reap. We started the tour with Akim on the back of a motorbike with her driver and also our tour guide on the back of a motorbike with his driver and me driving my own motorbike. We passed through some villages and got further and further out into the country. We stopped to look at some fish and shrimp farms, which are basically big ponds with propellors on the surface to aerate the water for the shrimp. We reached a village  with some narrow streets and a market, and we stopped to eat some market food including some steamed clams with lemongrass and some sea shells filled with eggs and scallops and peanuts. We were trying to limit how much we ate so we could save room for lunch but our guide "Cao" then ordered some watermelon for us. 

We continued on into the countryside and stopped to see different things along the way, like rice paddies, a rice wine moonshine operation, an incense factory, and a temple that was shut down by the communists but was just now getting back up and running. At a lot of the stops, Akim and Cao would get into some deep discussion about the state of Cambodia or Vietnam and it was interesting to hear the different perspectives from a Vietnamese guy versus a Cambodian lady. Cao was very animated and is the type of guy that speaks with more confidence than he might actually have. He's rather jaded towards the Vietnamese government, and rightfully so since he was put in a reeducation camp after the government found 30-something shoeboxes of negatives in his house from photographs he'd taken during the war. After being released he wasn't allowed to touch a camera for 10 years. 

The tour continued through back roads past simple wood and grass huts, always with friendly kids waving and shouting "hello." We made a number of river crossings on ferries to get across the various Mekong tributaries. At one point we were on a singletrack trail and then had to cross a rickety narrow bridge with no side rails. Cao said we had to cross one at a time because the bridge was too weak, and I wimped out and had him drive the motorbike while I walked across it. My motorbike skills were not yet ready for that challenge.

We had a late lunch at a restaurant near where we started and had way more food provided to us than we could possibly eat. There was a large party of government employees drunkenly (loudly) singing karaoke nearby. After lunch we headed back to the headquarters and the tour was over. It was a lot of fun and a great way to see how people live in the Mekong delta region.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130702MekongDeltaScooterTour?authuser=0&feat=directlink

7/1 Ho Chi Minh City

As promised, Tuay drove me to the airport at 5:30am, and he even woke me up because my alarm hadn't gone off for some reason. We made it with plenty of time, after seeing what I believe was a fatal motorbike accident on the highway. I'd been told that I'd see one during my time in Thailand since there are so many of them, but this was my first and it rattled me a little.
I was harassed by a Hungarian girl at the airport about Americans being crazy, an argument I wasn't ready to have at 6:30am.
The visa process in Vietnam was relatively painless and I easily found Chris in the mob outside the airport. Chris and Mimi are living in a really nice apartment building in a very central location. The Reunification Palace is across the street, and the other big attractions are within walking distance. I took some time to make some plans for the upcoming days, then we walked to a spot for lunch. We had some tasty spring rolls with crabs from the Mekong River, along with some fresh leafy greens and vermicelli noodles. Ee also each had an avocado shake, which sounds gross but is actually pretty tasty. They're made with sweet condensed milk, so it's sweet and avocado-y at the same time. Mimi was able to join us during her lunch break.
After lunch I ventured out to the touristy stops of HCMC. The first site was the Reunification Palace. It's an odd 70s type building, built to be very modern but now appears very retro. It was the headquarters for South Vietnam until the North Vietnamese too Saigon and broke down the gates if the palace with a tank. The English tour was free, and I would have learned a lot more except for an annoying group of American college students that wouldn't shut up. The basement of the palace was the most interesting since it was built in case the rest of the building was cut off. It could withstand a bomb and had a completely separate radio system that could connect with Washington. I wandered around the park outside the palace where they have the famous tank on display.

I next visited the French-style cathedral and post office, eventually ending up at HCMC's tallest building, the Bitexco Tower. I drank a beer and watched the sunset over the city from the 52nd floor, then met Chris and Mimi for dinner.
Dinner was delicious, with some steamed clams, a shrimp-type pancake wrapped in lettuce, and some other things I don't remember.

Photo album: https://picasaweb.google.com/108933817613007660268/20130702HoChiMinhCity?authuser=0&feat=directlink

6/30 Ayuthaya and Bangkok

Pam and her Uncle Tuoy picked me up at the train station in Bangkok and drove me back to their house in the suburbs where I met Pam's dad, Prechai, and her mom, Ann, both of whom went to Bucknell. Tuoy is Ann's cousin and works as an architect and lives with Pam and her parents. It's a beautiful house and they informed me that I'd be staying with them that night (not at a hostel) and that I'd be storing my extra things with them (not at a storage facility). And they said Tuoy didn't mind driving me to the airport the next morning at 5:30am and that he also didn't mind picking me up at the airport on my return trip to Bangkok. I thought Tuoy is very nice, or else he doesn't know what they're signing him up for.

We headed north, with Tuoy as the driver, to Ayuthaya, the ancient capital city, built on an island at the confluence of three rivers. On the way we stopped at a rest stop where Ann bought me two packs of "durian sweets" (moon pie) as well as another popular Thai dessert. They also got me some iced Thai tea. This seemed to be a day of spoiling Dan. We kept driving and reached Ayuthaya around noon. The remaining structures were very impressive, possibly more impressive than Angkor Wat in Cambodia. We walked around the grounds despite the intense sun, and then visited another site where apparently some scenes from Mortal Kombat were filmed (it is historical for other reasons as well).

After visiting the nearby temple, we headed to lunch at a nice restaurant along a big river. Ann ordered for everyone, and it was one of those meals where the plates kept coming. Ann is a classic "mom" where she's always concerned that you haven't eaten enough and that you haven't eaten enough meat. It didn't help that I'd told them I'd lost ten pounds since starting my travels in February. The meal consisted of some fried rice, about four different kinds of fish, some tom yum goong soup (hot and sour soup with shrimp), some green curry, and some grilled pork. I probably hadn't eaten that much food in one sitting since our trip to China when an equally sweet, concerned motherly lady forced Chinese food down me. We left and waddled back to the car, then stopped at a famous Roti place, where Ann got me some roti (a thin crepe-like thing) with sweet cotton-candy type stuff wrapped inside.

We drove back towards Bangkok and visited King Rama the 5th's old summer palace, which was an interesting mix of Thai and British colonial architecture. After that we hit traffic and everyone except Tuoy fell asleep.

We stopped at a grocery store once we were back in Bangkok and Pam and Ann got some food for my trip the next day. This included three bags of potato chips, two bottles of milk, and an orange juice. They also got some durian (a fruit) so I could try it, since I said I'd never tried it but was curious. Later, they also bought me a breakfast sandwich and a muffin, and I joked that I wouldn't even get to sample Vietnamese food as I'd still be working through their supplies.

They said we'd be having an early dinner so I could go to bed early that night. We went to a trendy suburban area and went to a Singha microbrewery restaurant since I'd mentioned that I missed eating cheese and this place serves Western food. I could barely even think of eating again, so I ordered a light pasta dish. Ann furrowed her brow and suggested an enormous meatball instead, so I compromised and got pasta carbonara, but when it arrived it had insufficient bacon so Ann ordered some spare ribs and chicken wings to supplement my meager meal. I finished my pasta and my large beer but Ann insisted I finish the ribs and wings, and then ordered me another large beer. I was pushing the limits of what my body could handle but somehow managed to put down a few more ribs but ultimately came up short on the wings.

In all seriousness, though, Ann and everyone else were extremely generous and took outrageously good care of me, and I have to say it was one of my best days in Thailand.

The night ended back at their house with me sitting at the kitchen table, once again with food in front of me - this time its the durian, and I've never been less hungry. Durian is called the "king of fruits," and it is a very polarizing fruit. Many people absolutely love it - particularly people I talked to in Malaysia. Others loathe it, saying it smells atrocious and tastes just as bad. It's true durian smells terrible - you can smell it from twenty yards away, and hotels and bus companies often post signs that say durian is not allowed in their facilities due to the smell. The outsidd of the fruit is massive, green, and spiky, and the fruit inside looks like a few huge yellow turds. I took in the first bite, trying to ignore the smell, and was surprised that the taste was different from the smell and was pretty good. The texture was odd - it started off a little fibrous but became a little creamy towards the end. I told Pam it was gross but I wanted more, and it was the same reaction with each bite. I can't say I loved it, but it was a positive experience and I'd like to have some more, hopefully next time I'm actually hungry.

6/29 Train to Bangkok

I took the usual 17 hr train ride to Bangkok from Chiang Mai, after packing everything up and saying goodbye to the few friends I had made during my stay. I introduced John, my Thai friend from the hotel I stayed at for the first week, to Mexican food, which seemed to be a hit. I had dinner with Brett, the guy from Pennsylvania who had played for Chiang Mai FC a few years ago and was trying to get back into the league. I had lunch with Micah, a friend of Brett, who also came to Thailand to play soccer but, like Brett, got mired in the networking and dead ends and has decided to take a coaching job back in the US. I didn't get to see Nok, since she had to leave town to see her father, whose health had deteriorated.

After getting a haircut and my flip flop fixed, I hit the road.

On the train I sat across from an older Australian guy who was traveling with his Thai girlfriend who, in his words "was the the real deal unlike the other Thai women you see with foreign men." To be fair she was more homely and closer to his age, but she barely spoke English which made me wonder about the legitimacy of their interest in each other. He used phrases like "you go sleep now number one everything ok," which I would assume only confuses someone trying to learn English. It turns out this guy is pretty much the non-famous and still-living version of Steve Irwin, the croc hunter. He's been catching and keeping snakes and lizards in Australia since he was a kid and is the go-to guy whenever his neighbors encounter a snake. He calls men blokes and women sheilas and was generally interesting to talk to aside from the fact that I had to shout at him in the sleeper car due to his poor hearing. He gave me his girlfriend's Heineken, then shared his last beer with me. After that I headed to the restaurant car to get another beer and stumbled into a rager, where both foreigners and Thais were blasting music and drinking. As soon as I entered, everyone cheered, as I assume they were happy to have another partier. As I was ordering the beer in the restaurant car the partiers started clapping, as if they wanted someone to start dancing. The Thai server accepted their challenge and he did about two awkward hip swirls before his pants fell down to his ankles which sent everyone into laughter. I reluctantly returned to my old Australian buddy so I could continue drinking with him and shouting at him while other people tried to sleep.