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There is an amazing
310
travel-log entries on
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page(s) and your are on page number
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
25 August 2005
at
12:22
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Day 57 (24th August 2005)
Went back to the tailors for the fitting of the suits I ordered. The suit jackets were a little tight around my chest so I asked them to change them slighty to give me a little more room. My shoes were ready and they fit like a glove so I paid for them and took them with me. In the evening we went to a nice restaurant down by the river and had a good meal and some wine - Super!
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| Matt is currently in
Hoi An, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
23 August 2005
at
11:23
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Day 56 (23rd August 2005)
The 12Hr bus journey was again horrendous - problems with the air con and annoying people sitting in front and behind of us. We arrived here in Hoi An at 6am this morning and checked into a really nice hotel for $7 a night. After getting some sleep we ventured out from the hotel by bicycle and met someone who took us to a tailors. This was my plan anyway to get a suit. After looking at the catalogue I found 2 suits that I was interested in and was measured up, 1 of them is costing me $50 and the other $70 - that is $120 for 2 tailor made suits (just 66 UK Pounds) Tomorrow I have to go back for the fitting. I have also bought a pair of custom made moccasin shoes for $24 (Only 12 Pounds) What a bargain!! I am going to post the suits and shoes back home as I haven't got the space to carry them with me. In the evening we went out a little late and everywhere seemed to be closing at 11pm, so we talked to a motobike driver and he took us to a nightclub, but it was a little expensive so we left and he then took us to this weird little bar that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We were both on this moto and seemed to be driving through fields in the country side and then we turned up at this place. There were only 5 people in there when we arrived and then all of a sudden loads of others turned up - all foreigners - so I am gussing that this place may not be legal. Anyway it seemed like it was someones garage that had been turned into a bar. The beer was a resonable price though and they had a pool table so we stayed there until 2am then went back to the hotel. When I got back I put the TV on and I was just in time to see the second half of the Portsmouth V Aston Villa game - what a bonus!
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| Matt is currently in
Hoi An, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
22 August 2005
at
08:01
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Day 55 (22nd August 2005)
We got up late today and headed out to try and find somewhere to eat. There doesn't seem to be many other places here apart from seafood restaurants and I am not an avid lover of seafood. Eventually we found somewhere, we also took a walk down to the beach to get some photos. The beach is really really nice and has amazing views across to some mountainous islands and aqua blue seas. We don't plan to do anything else here so we are hanging around until 6pm to catch our night bus. Hence why I am here in the internet cafe trying to burn some time! My next update will be from Hoi An........Stay tuned folks! [Does anyone actually read this anyway??]
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| Matt is currently in
Nha trang, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
22 August 2005
at
07:57
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Day 54 (21st August 2005)
The bus turned up on time (for once!) unfortunately they impose a strict 30MPH speed limit everywhere in Vietnam so the bus journeys take an horrendously long time. However, on the journey we were able to see some spectacular scenery and beaches along the coast. On arrival to Nha Trang the whole place seemed really really busy. For convienience we checked into the guesthouse that the bus recommended and anyway it was only $6 with fan and TV. We had both run out of money so the first thing we had to do here was to find an ATM. This proved somewhat difficult as some of them only excepted Vietnamese cards and the ones that did except our cards where either out of service or broken. After walking around for an hour and a half we finally came across one that we could use...Bingo! I became a millionaire again by withdrawing 2 million Dong! That should last me a while...in the evening we went to dinner with some people we met from the bus. Like Mui Ne everywhere was closing up early so we just went back and I went to bed. We are only staying here for the daytime tomorrow and then we are catching the night bus (12 Hrs) to Hoi An where I think we will be staying about 3 nights, just enough time to get a suit made and send it back home...
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| Matt is currently in
Nha trang, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
22 August 2005
at
07:49
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Day 53 (20th August 2005)
I didn't manage to get to the sand dunes today and spent the whole day on the beach instead. Mui Ne is nice but very quiet, the beaches are very clean, however everything shuts up kind of early and I found myself going to bed really early. There just seems to be seafood restaurants here and no bars. We did manage to find a nice Italian restaurant where we could get a decent meal. This place is basically a town that is stretched out along one straight road. If you want peace and quiet and a nice beach then this is the place to come, if you want to party and drink in bars then it is not. Anyway tomorrow we are heading off to a place called Nha Trang which lies further north up the coast and about 5 hours from here by bus...we leave at 12.30pm 
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| Matt is currently in
Mui Ne, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
19 August 2005
at
10:40
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Day 52 (19th August 2005)
We left Saigon early this morning to catch the bus to Mui Ne. After another boring 4 hours bus journey, entertained only by books and MP3 we arrived at Mui Ne. We got dropped off at a guesthouse that is right by the beach..Bonus! The apartments are clean and pretty good value at $7 a night. I think tomorrow I am going to do a trip to the sand dunes where you can go sand-surfing....
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| Matt is currently in
Mui Ne, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
19 August 2005
at
10:37
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Day 51 (18th August 2005)
Today we did the 1 day Mekong Delta trip. The bus picked us up from the travel agents at 8am and after a 2 hour drive we arrived at a place where we boarded a boat. We went out to a few of the islands in the delta. At the first place we stopped at, the people were producing coconut candy. The coconut is pressed into a pulp, mixed with caramel and heated over a stove to form the candy. The whole process is done manually and the molten candy is poured into channels and cooled to form candy strips about 1m in length. It is then cut into smaller squares, hand wrapped in rice paper and then packed. This stuff is delicious, so I bought some, a big pack for less than $1 - Bargain! After some free tasters we got back on the boat and went to another place where we tried some honey tea and rice wine. There was also a massive snake there that I held for a while in order to get a picture with taken with it. We then moved on to another place for some lunch and then to another island to eat some fresh fruits and hear some traditional Vietnamese music played by a group of local people using authentic instruments. The trip ended by travelling along small rivers in very typical narrow boats, the whole place looked exactly like a scene out of the film Platoon. We arrived back at the guesthouse around 4 or 5pm and went for dinner. Tomorrow we catch the bus to Mui Ne which is about 4 hours north from here. Mui Ne is a beach resort so I am hoping to catch a swim and some beach there before we move on!
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| Matt is currently in
Saigon, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
19 August 2005
at
10:22
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Day 50 (17th August 2005)
We had a quiet day today as we had planned. We were milling around at the guesthouse watching TV and later out on the street for beers and food.
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| Matt is currently in
Saigon, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
17 August 2005
at
08:42
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Day 49 (16th August 2005)
Woke up 6.30am and got ready to leave. We had breakfast at the tour place and then left by mini-bus to head to the tunnel complex which was located about 1 1/2 hours from where we are staying. On the way we stopped at a rubber tree plantation where our tour guide explained how the rubber is extracted from the trees. Believe me there were 100's of trees there, then just up the road from there we arrived at the tunnels. Our guide explained the background behind them and how they were constructed. There are over 250kms of tunnels under Cu Chi and they took the people 20 years to build. The Vietnamese people lived in and fought the Americans from the tunnels. We were taken down into some of the tunnels and at places we had to literally crawl on our hands and knees to fit through them, we saw the kitchen, operations room and found out about the bamboo traps and various other boobie traps that the Vietnamese people used. After the tour we returned to the tour place for lunch and then the driver dropped us off at the war remnants museum. This place has loads of pictures from the Vietnamese/American war and some were really horrific, for instance there were pictures of people that had been victims of napalm and agent orange (which is a horrific dioxin). There were pictures of deformed children that had been the children of people exposed to the deadly dioxins, this stuff is really nasty. That war should never have happened and just to see these horrific pictures is enough for anyone to know that. Like Cambodia I am witnessing another country that has been deeply destroyed by American foreign policy. Now I am starting to understand why everyone hates America and I am starting to feel them same feelings myself. I am glad that I went to understand the effect that the war had on these Vietnamese people. They lost 3 million people in that war but the people were so strong willed and would not back down to the Americans. Fair play to them, it is their country and I admire their courage and determination to stick up to the Americans.
In the evening we went out for dinner and then to a couple of bars for some beers. It's a bonus 'cos I can get Heineken here for less that $1 a bottle (something not available in Cambodia)Tomorrow we are having a quiet day and Thursday we plan to do a 1 day Mekong Delta boat trip.....
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| Matt is currently in
Saigon, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
17 August 2005
at
08:28
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Day 48 (15th August 2005)
Caught the bus ok this morning and got to the border crossing for Vietnam. There was some confusion as we couldn't work out where we had to go at the border. We also got scammed $2 to enter the country by touts offering to fill in our forms for us. On the Vietnam side our bus was really nice and we arrived in Saigon at around 3pm. We located some accomodation (with fan and cable tv) for around $6 a night - Bargain! In the evening we booked a tour for tomorrow heading to the Cu Chi tunnel complex and then we went for a pizza! We are staying along the main backpacker road here called Bui Vien it's like a mini Khao San Road without so many people - there are loads of places to eat and drink and ofcourse travel places to book tours. My first impressions of Vietnam are good, the place seems as wealthy (if not more) as Thailand. There are thousands of motorbikes everywhere and crossing a road seems like a life-threatening event, however after some practise you realise that you just have to walk out into the road slowly so that the bikes can see you and then they will manouver around you. As in Thailand you also get swamped by the many street vendors trying to sell books, lighters, ganja etc when you are sat in a bar or restaurant here. Sometimes this gets a little bit annoying but you just have to ignore them and they eventually don't bother you....
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| Matt is currently in
Saigon, Vietnam |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
14 August 2005
at
12:39
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Day 47 (14th August 2005)
Woke up this morning and stomach felt fine so had some breakfast and we got the bus at 8.15am as planned. The journey back to Phnom Penh went ok and we arrived at 12.30pm. We checked back into The New Lodge guesthouse on the lakeside for only 1 night. We had decided in Sihanoukville that when we would go back to Phnom Penh we would go to see some kids at an orphanage. Well today we did exactly that. We agreed that it would be better to take them some rice, so we bought 50kg of rice and arrived at the orphanage at around 3pm. The kids were so happy to see us and flocked around us almost immediately after arriving. I played football with some of the boys. There were over 30 kids in total their ages ranging from about 2 to maybe 14. Some of the kids were abandoned by their parents, some of them had no mum or dad. It was quite sad to see these kids just existing solely on donations from foreigners. This place was run by a Cambodian guy and everything he has built up was done from donations. For the very little that they had there the kids seemed so happy and content and full of smiles when we saw them. It was a good feeling to know that we have helped them in some small way even if it be to put a smile on their faces for a couple of hours. I am so glad that we chose to go there because it has really made me appreciate so much more about how lucky I am in comparison to these kids playing in the dirt that have nothing and probably never will.
We have booked our bus ticket to go to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) tomorrow morning at 6.30am so the next update will be coming from there....Stay tuned.....
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| Matt is currently in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia (again) |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
14 August 2005
at
12:26
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Day 46 (13th August 2005)
Today was kind of a non-event for me, we were supposed to be leaving at 12.30pm today to get the bus back to Phnom Penh but I was suffering again from a really dodgy stomach so we cancelled the bus until tommorow morning. I dreaded feeling like this, the pains were similar to them that I experienced during my food posioning bout in Chiang Mai and I was fearing the worst. I slept for a few hours and drank only water, watched the rugby and Man U vs Everton on the tv. By the evening I felt much better and we all went out to a bar for some food, unfortunately getting soaked to the bone when we left as the heavens opened up on us in a big way. Tommorow we leave for Phnom Penh at 8.15am* (*subject to fine stomach conditions)
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| Matt is currently in
Sihanoukville, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
14 August 2005
at
12:21
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Day 45 (12th August 2005)
Ok it was up and at em'around 7am. The mini-bus came to pick us up from the guesthouse and take us for breakfast and then to the beach where we would catch the boat to the islands. The boat journey took ages and at times was a little rough but we got to the first island around 10am and went snorkeling. This was my first time snorkeling and I saw some interesting fish and coral, at one point I didn't realise how far out I actually was and after looking up to see the shore so far away I had started to panic and my breathing went. I had to swim back to the shore to sort myself out. After a couple of hours of snorkeling/beach we stopped for lunch, it was barbecued barracuda fillet with salad and baguette and it was really delicious. After some more swimming and stuff it was time to go to the other island, this time we stopped for just swimming for about an hour and then it was time to head back. However a storm was heading in so the guy driving the boat decided to stay put until it passed. When it arrived the rain was really heavy and cold so everyone in the boat decided to jump off into the sea where it was astually much warmer. I managed to lobster myself today, I caught the sun a little too much on my back and head so I have been suffering a little. In the evening we went for beers for Emma's 25th birthday (Emma is from NZ and we met her in Phnom Penh) and with also Matt and Pete (two other sound guys we also met in Phnom Penh).
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| Matt is currently in
Sihanoukville, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
11 August 2005
at
11:54
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Day 44 (11th August 2005)
We hire d some motorbikes today to explore Sihanoukville. We basically drove around for about 4 or 5 hours and discovered some excellent beaches with white sand and they were completely empty as they were away from the tourist areas. It was nice to see some of the proper Cambodia and it was good fun on the motos until the heavens opened and we all got completely soaked. We have booked (for tomorrow) a boat trip to an island where we are going to go snorkeling and stuff - lunch and drinks included. Only thing is we have to get up ready to leave for 8am which might be a problem, don't think I've got up that early since I left work!!!!
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| Matt is currently in
Sihanoukville, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
11 August 2005
at
11:46
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Day 43 (10th August 2005)
Yet again another chilled day, we went down to the beach for a while and had dinner down at a place called Eden right by the sea. When we left at about 12am I decided to go for a swim in the sea...couldn't believe how warm the water was....superb!
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| Matt is currently in
Sihanoukville, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
10 August 2005
at
06:09
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Day 42 (9th August 2005)
Got up about 10am to get packed and sort out our guesthouse bill before heading to the bus station to catch the 12pm bus to Sihanoukville. On arrival to the bus station it appeared that our bus was full! So we had to wait for the later bus at 1.30pm. We arrived in Sihanoukville and around 6pm and got picked up from the bus station by moto drivers, they took us to a pre-arranged guesthouse. I have my own room with cable tv for $5/night which is nice. It was just still light enough after checking in to go for a short walk down to the beach, the beaches here are pretty nice with white sand. We were pretty hungry after the bus journey so we went for a curry and then for a few beers at a bar. I think I like it here, maybe it is just the fact that I am back by the sea, which is something I have missed a lot since leaving England. We have decided to stay here until Saturday before heading back to Phnom Penh so we can catch a bus straight into Vietnam.............
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| Matt is currently in
Sihanoukville, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
10 August 2005
at
06:03
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Day 41 (8th August 2005)
Managed to get myself out of bed today in order to head out to the national museum and grand palace with Ailish. The national museum was quite boring, there were just a load of bronze buddhas and stuff in there and so far I think I have seen enough Buddhas. The grand palace was a little more interesting as there was an emerald buddha in the main palace. I had managed to miss the one in the palace in Bangkok so it was good to see this one I guess. In the evening we went for pizza and then a couple of beers before heading back to the guesthouse for a fairly early night. Tommorrow we are leaving for Sihanoukville...
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| Matt is currently in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
07 August 2005
at
11:05
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Days 39 & 40 (6th/7th August 2005)
Didn't get up until late on these days so decided to stay at the guesthouse - at some point we are going to go the royal palace and national museum. We are definately going to Sihanoukville on Tuesday so maybe we will go to these places on Monday!
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| Matt is currently in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
06 August 2005
at
09:49
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Day 38 (5th August 2005)
We decided to have a quiet day today just milling around at the guesthouse. In the evening we went to a few bars on the street outside the guesthouse. At midnight we headed to this place called "Elsewhere" where there was a big party going on that only happens once a month. There was a massive swimming pool there and lots of crazy drunk people. When this finished we went to another bar and finally got back to the guesthouse at around 6.30am!
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| Matt is currently in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia |
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Travel-log entry
by
Matt
on
04 August 2005
at
10:02
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Day 37 (4th August 2005)
We didn't drink any beers last night, so we were up early at 9am. We quickly had breakfast and got picked up on time at 10, the first stop today was the S-21 prison, this place was formerly a school but was converted into a prison by the Khymer Rouge. It is where the prisoners were taken and tortured by the Kymer Rouge before they were killed at the killing fields. You can walk around the cells, some of them are made of brick, others are wooden. Displayed in two of the buildings are pictures of the prisoners that were killed, seeing all of them pictures really makes it real, it helps you to understand the brutality of the Kymer Rouge and the fear that the poor people had to suffer. We then headed for the killing fields which are located about 14Kms from central Phnom Penh but before getting there we stopped off at a shooting range - this was my bit of fun for the day. I figured it would be cool to actually fire some guns, so I decided on firing an AK-47 (with 30 bullets) and a Colt 45 handgun (7 bullets). As I fired these things (at paper targets!) I realised for the first time the actual lethality of these weapons and the re-coils from the shots were very strong. The guy on the range let me take some photos with the guns, but it seems to be very difficult to find an internet place here that will let me upload them. It cost around 20GBP but I just had to do it...this was the ultimate experience and every boys dream! After this we went to see the killing fields, the memorial monument was very sad...to see so many skulls all stacked onto about 8 shelves and to think that these skulls were them of the men, women and children that we had seen in the photos of at the S21 prison. Tonight I think we are going to hit a few bars but we haven't planned anything for tomorrow. We have also arranged to get our Vietnam visas so that we are ready to enter the country around the 10th of the month. EDIT: We got our passports back with the visas for Vietnam and we did hit a few bars...5 to be exact and arrived back at some ridiculous hour in the morning!
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| Matt is currently in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia |
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