Jan 15th Ho Chi Minh City - Siem Reap

Jan 15^th – Ho Chi Minh City – Seam Reap

Last night we met up with an old friend of mine from StrataCom days who’s currently living in HCMC – Ben Fisk. Unfortunately Ben broke his ankle during a fracas in Singapore about a week back that involved him preventing the theft of a young ladies iPad, I guess that’s the price of chivalry. Fortunately the break isn’t that bad, but he still has to wear a light cast. We ended up close to his end of town in a bar/restaurant beside the river. It was a bit noisy, but the food was good and the beer acceptable. Ben and I tried very hard not to reminisce as we had Kim and Tamsin with us. After an interesting taxi journey via Ben’s house (i.e. got ripped off by a taxi), we got home.

This morning I went out early to have breakfast with another old Stratacomer – Doug Farndale.  I’ve been trying to meet up with Doug in Singapore for years, but it never seems to quite work out so, this was an unexpected pleasure. Almost immediately we dropped into catch up and it was almost like we’d only met last week, not 17+ years ago!! Sadly Doug had a meeting and I wanted to go back to the War Remnants Museum, 1.5 hours whistled by.

As Doug and I were meeting, Tamsin and Kim had changed their minds about venturing out and were heading for the Botanic Gardens which also houses the zoo.

War Remnants Museum

I headed up the street to the museum and expected to be there for about an hour plus. In fact I walked to the museum far quicker than expected despite the heat. I rushed back to the first floor as I had already completed the top floor and its section on reporting the Vietnam War and on Agent Orange. The first floor starts with a quote from the American Declaration of Independence namely;

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

It then proceeds to document where, during the Vietnam War, the US violated that declaration and other UN and Geneva agreements made subsequently. The use of Agent Orange, toxic gases, the “seek and destroy” missions, to name but a few. Most of the photographs are harrowing as are the displays of armaments used during the conflict. Basically the US used the Vietnam as a proving ground for its weapon development. It doesn’t show Uncle Sam in a good light. However, history is written by the victors and the Viet Cong/Viet Minh were just as barbaric, which is not documented, but what they did was not on an industrial scale. I then wandered out into the sunshine to look at some of the weapons left behind namely; tanks, howitzers, helicopters and jets. The whole revisit took about 50mins, so I walked back towards the hotel. I then looked and saw the text from Kim and Tamsin saying they expected to be back by 1pm.

Realising that I had time to play with I stopped at a coffee shop that we have passed a few times and decided to go in. Looking at the VND I had left I realised that I could afford an Iced Green Tea Icecream – yum. I then headed back to the hotel arriving at 12:15. Tamsin and Kim arrived at 12:40 having enjoyed the gardens and zoo.

Beautiful orchids

Note from TJV re. the botanical gardens/zoo.  The gardens were beautiful and had loads of gorgeous orchids in them as well as huge beds of bright red bedding salvias that were most unexpected.  The bonsais too were fantastic and obviously very old.  The zoo was an old fashioned zoo built in the 1920’s.  In other words, the buildings which house the animals were crumbling concrete and far too small.  It wasn’t good to see the big cats in bare concrete enclosures with no greenery or anything to make their lives more comfortable.  The elephants too seemed mad with a few of them just rocking backwards and forwards.  We also visited the reptile house and saw masses of huge Burmese pythons which looked very large and well fed.  There were crocodiles too and was shocked to see a group of teenage locals, who were old enough to know better, spitting on one of them.   I didn’t look too closely at the birds as I don’t like to see them caged, but groups of other animals such as the monkeys and a vast herd of different Asian deer had big enclosures and lots of young so must have been content enough.

I told them about the delicious Icecream I’d had and they thought they needed something as we still had time to kill before our pick up for the airport at 2pm. I decided on a beef soup and Tamsin had a Green Tea Icecream as well as a beef soup. Kim went for an enormous noodle dish and an iced coffee. The iced coffee was just that, ice cubes in a large cup and coffee steeping through to another small cup. Add one to t’other and hey presto, iced coffee!

We went back to the hotel and met up with Dung and the driver and headed for the airport. Needless to say the traffic was it’s usually manic self. We arrived at the airport a little later than planned, but got through with no problems. However, we don’t get the visa system as they never asked for our photo papers, Hmm, maybe they’re needed later???

After a short flight we landed at Seam Reap, where getting a visa wasn’t too difficult but were glad we got off the plane first and were at the front of the queue! After picking up our luggage, we were met by our guide, Top Joe and the driver. Dung had mentioned that the Cambodians were friendlier and more open than the Vietnamese and he was right. They remind me a lot of the Thai’s to whom they’re closely aligned.  They’re very polite and seem to be genuinely pleased to see you and want you to enjoy their country.  As so many are involved in tourism, then that’s hardly surprising.  We checked into the hotel and have had a leisurely evening in the hotel as we’re sure tomorrow will be a long day.