Revisitng Phnom Penh to Hoi An

Well its been quite awhile since our last post yet again, and for such we are sorry. but lets delve right into the details.

After we finished our jaw-dropping 3 day angkor wat experience, we hopped on a bus back to the beautiful city oh phnom penh. Little did we know , when we boarded, that we would actually have to stop about 25 kms outside of the city and from there arrange our own tuk-tuk to take us into the actual town. The reason the bus could not make it into Phnom penh itself was because of the annual water festival that occurs there. This festival is a few days long and cambodians from all over their beautiful country flock there to watch the dragon boat races, the fireworks and the elaboraely lit up boats at night. When we arrived we tried to get a room at the guesthosue we stayed at before, but because of the festival and the fact that it is so close to the river also meant that it was full already. We walked a little ways further and found ourselves a pretty shabby room, which thankfully we has for only one night. That afternoon we both had a nap to regain some energy, and ended up seleping through the fireworks, but we woke up and were able to see the lit up boats ttraveling up and down the river. The streets were blocked off from traffic and there were people everywhere, but it didnt feel like too much of a festival, at least to myself. After walking aroud the streets, watching the boats and hearing abit of a boy band concert in cambodian we returned to our room for the night.

The next morning we got up bright and early and walked to the diamond guesthouse to get a ride to the bus station for our bus from Phnom Penh to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City (HCM) in vietnam) evi edntally we were able to levae the city by bus but not arrive by bus. The trip wasnt too bad at all, until after the border crossing into vietnam. The border went smoothly with no disturbances, However within 10 minutes of our bus departing from the border, the AC died... the next 2 hours of our life were spent inside a sauna. I am not exagerating. There was no air flow at all and the temperature steadily rose inside, making it almost completely unbareable, but its all part of the adventure, and it made us all the more apprecitative of the fan we had in our next guesthouse.

The following morning we went on an organized tour to the cu chi tunnels outside of saigon. This vast underground tunnel system is in total 250 km and is only 80cm wide by 120cm tall. At this site we were also able to go to the shooting range. Also we were able to see all the different booby traps used by the viet cong as well as all the different sorts of rooms in the tunnels and the overall architectural ingenuity of the viet cong guerillas. later that day we also went to the war remnants museum.

We have purchased an "open bus ticket" what this is is a bus ticket to a variety of stops that have no predetermined dates on them. so our trip through vietnam has consisted of and will consist of HMC --> Mui ne --> Da Lat --> Nha Trang --> Hoi an (where we are now) --> Hue --> Hanoi. Tommorrow we will actually be heading to hue at 8 int he morning and then at 5 oclock in the evening of the same day we will board another bus that we will take overnight to hanoi, where we will spend the 24th. We will be flying from hanoi back to bangkok on nov.25.

we sepnt a total of 3 days in mui ne. the first day we found a guesthouse and just enjoyed an easy evening. The following day we took the morning to relax in our room and in the afternoon we each rented a motorbike. one very new one and one more vintage if you will... the official name of the vintage motorbike is "baby blue beauty". We tried to find the local sand dunes, having herd fo the sand sledding there, but we rode right past them and a few km down the road we decided to just park our bike and walk down to the beach. the waves were crashing nicely and the tide was slwoly coming in and the best part was that there was no one else on the beach. It was good to just get to relax on a beautiful beach. After spending some time there we got back on our bikes and set out to return to the guesthouse. on the wway back carson ran out of fuel and luckily it was right at the sand dunes, so we didnt miss tem ont he way back. After getting soem gas, we walked up onto the dunes where the wind was blowing furiously at times and i got to do 2 runs of sand sledding... needless to say afterwards i was covered in sand. not the best of feelings... The next day we spent pretty much only bumming around hte guesthouse. it was our first official day off where we did nothing, and boy did we need it! we both felt re-energized afterwards.

from mui ne we took a bus up to the central higlands town of da lat. that first night when we arrived we went to a cooking class with the owner of our hotel. After our inner, and as we were walking home, we were actually cold for the first time on this trip while beingoutside.... it was very much like going for a walk ona brisk summer night back home. the next day we just walked around town, went t the market and walked to the local flower garden. the following day we left fro nha trang. another beach but this beach was not as nice. the water was murky because it is now rainy season in vietnam i believe and the wind was extremely powerful.coupled with the torrential downpours walking around outside was not the most enjoyable of activities, but watching the large waves break on the shore was a relaxing passtime. We spent 1 night in nha trang and then two nights ago from today we took an over night sleeper bus from nha trang to hoi an. one thign i've found time and time again while traveling out here is that southeast asia is not meant to accomodate someone 6'2'' or so...

We arrived early friday morning and spent the day wondering around town looking in all the shops and just enjoying the old town feel where there were no tourists around. and tonight we will spend one more night at a new hotel , because of some problem at the first one we were at, and tomorrow we head to hue for the day and then at night we will be traveling to hanoi.

-Adam