Roads and space. That’s what we have. Miles and miles of smooth, silent motorways. Yes, there’s a lot of countryside in Vietnam, but it just seems so inhospitable. Too hot to enjoy it. England has gorgeous walks, public footpaths dissect through farmland, access is for all. From twig cracking to sunbathing, all seasons are outdoor friendly, on a nice day. People have such space down in Bournemouth — houses laid out neatly with front garden and back. Birds twitter in the trees, and the off the main roads the streets are deserted. Where are all the people! The noise as well, is deathly quiet. Sit round the table with a hot cup of tea and all you can hear from outside is the clock ticking and the boiler creaking. You could hear a squirrel fart. Hardly HCMC. Cars drive in odd markings called lanes, and wait at red lights even when nobody is crossing. Why? Cause that’s just what you do. People are so polite. Even a man with tattoes across knuckles, neck and skull would apologise profusely if he got in your way in the shop…listen in a British department store and you will hear Please, Thankyou and Sorry, within a few seconds. I guarantee it.

People call Britain the ‘nanny state’, because they feel the government does too much for the people. All I can do is to repeat the first loud speaker announcement I heard upon arrival at Gatwick airport - ‘Please be advised that in the interests of safety children are not allowed to ride on the baggage trolleys. Thank you’. Totally random, I thought.

Some shots of the beauty of Dorset coming up.

Looking back towards Bournemouth and seven miles of beaches across the bay from Hengistbury Head

Christchurch Priory

Part of the UNESCO World Heritage Jurassic Coast, right on my doorstep. This is Old Harry Rocks.

More Jurassic Coast.

Corfe Castle from the gardens of the Banks Arms pub.

Old pub on historic Poole Quay. According to www.poolequay.com, the Quay has a history of ships docking and trading goods since the 16th century. Many of the original buildings still stand along the waterfront, as well as the beautiful old town.

The customs house in Poole, built in the 18th century.

The ‘other half’ enjoys the wildlife in Poole Park.

After enjoying the beauty of my local area, Christmas Day loomed, and with it some fantastic food, gifts, and a warm fireplace.

The table is set

Xmas Dinner waiting for gravy…

In the Lounge

After stuffing our faces, catching up with old (for me) and new (for Chi) friends, it was off to Londres, better known as Old London Town, the capital of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. We did the Eye.

Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey from the London Eye.

Westminster Abbey,
location of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the marriage of Diana and Charles, and Princess Diana’s funeral. Amongst many other things. Kings and Queens of England are entombed inside the Abbey including Edward the Confessor who died in 1066, Edward III and Charles II. Many other famous people are buried here, people such as Sir Issac Newton, Charles Dickens, Dr Samuel Johnson, Chaucer, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, and Tennyson. Admission is 10 English pounds, or 320,651.47 Vietnam Dong.

The River Thames

The London Skyline - modest.

Crowds at Buckingham Palace - and I mean CROWDS. Forget it in the summer!

The famous entrance lobby of the Natural History Museum.

The Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the National Gallery are all FREE. Incredible really for three fantastic attractions. The Museums can be found near Kensington just down the road from Harrods. The National Gallery is in Trafalgar Square. It has paintings by Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli, Rubens, Rembrandt, Constable, Turner, Renoir and Monet, amongst many others. Worth a stroll for free entry I tells you, and Chi was mesmerized with it all. It’s all in London — history, culture and food (we had a damn good Chinese for lunch one day)…

So all in all, a very satisfying, warm (yet chilly), comfortable yet hectic, fascinating yet familiar trip home. It’s easy to see why sometimes life in Vietnam leaves me yearning for England.

2002 - Sydney, Australia

Fresh out of University, traveling the world with three friends, Sydney is the stereotypical British backpackers Christmas - you can tell that by the 20,000 other people in Union Jack swimming trunks, and that’s not even mentioning the Irish population around Bondi. Christmas Eve we hit the town in Kings Cross, Syndey’s notorious backpacker/red light district (strange how those two always go together…). Here’s a pic from that hazy night.

Yes, that’s me in the middle being strangled by a Vodka drink. Xmas Day and it was off to the beach — not joining the barmy army down at Bondi for the predictable embarrassment of a nation (the Brits abroad), we opted for a much more low key affair at nearby Bronte Beach.

2003 - Seoul, South Korea

The picture has nothing to do with Christmas, so tough. But it is in Seoul.


After getting the train into Seoul, this was a much frostier affair where Christmas Eve was spent fruitlessly looking for a dorm room on the campus of a huge city University (our accommodation via a friend) — eventually giving up at 10.30pm and heading to the bars of Hongdae. Rolling out of the clubs at 4.00am we were lucky to be saved from sleeping under a bridge by a friend, who invited us back to her house. We enjoyed a traditional Christmas breakfast of rice, soup, fish and kimchi, sat cross-legged on the floor.

2004 - Koh Lanta, Thailand
Christmas here was uneventful, a holiday where I followed my family’s Explore package holiday around. Unfortunately, Boxing Day was the most memorable for us, it was the morning of the 2004 Boxing Day Asian Tsunami, but that is another story altogether.

2005 - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

This time the parents visited Vietnam, and Chi entertained us at her mother’s house with a wonderful Christmas dinner.

2006 - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

This picture was taken inside the KLCC.

KL was alive and kicking on Xmas Eve, with what seemed like a million people thronging the city center around the Bukit Bintang area. Streamers, silly string and foam were flying through the air, rowdy groups of teenagers spraying passers by, and everyone was in the spirit. In the festive melee poor old Chi and I got separated — she turned up three hours later at the hotel, around 1am…! Still in one piece however.

2007 - Bournemouth, England

Coming Soon.

Last week we flew to Rach Gia airport in Kien Giang province, transferred to the bus station and took Mai Linh’s ‘express’ service to Ha Tien. Kien Giang is in the bottom left of Vietnam (for the geographically challenged), or if you want to be technical, the ’south west’. Phu Quoc island is also part of KG.

We jumped out of the cab around 30km from Ha Tien at Ba Hon where the road forks onto the Hon Chong Peninsular. The peninsular was beautiful at one time, but the drive out to the bay was pot marked with half quarried cliff faces and smoldering cement factories. Beyond the industrial mutilation of nature, the road hits a windy, forested section through which eventually emerges the 3 kilometer bay of Hon Chong.

We stayed in the ‘Green House’ which looks like this:

and had a fantastic room which looked like this - large, airy, with a private veranda outside and a wonderful view :

At the other end of the bay, the end of the road in this part of the world, is Hai Son Tu, or Sea Mountain Temple. A temple is entered through a large cave, the pathway leading past neon glowing Buddhas and onto a small beach where you would be faced with Hon Phu Tu, or Father and Son Isle.

After one night enjoying the fresh air and the views, Ha Tien was the next port of call. The end-of-the-line in Vietnam, Ha Tien is around 6km from the Cambodian border. The countryside surrounding the town, from Ba Hon to the border, is stunning. Miles of irrigated flat paddies and the occasional fringe of palms charm you into submission.

From the Thach Dong Cave Pagoda a few ks out of Ha Tien not only can you see the beautiful countryside of this area…

but you can also peer over the border into Cambodia…

It is down the road in the picture above, you’ll eventually come to the border gate.

This border has been open now to foreigners for some time. According to the guard, it is possible to get a visa for Cambodia in Ha Tien, although I didn’t look into this any further. The border is open from 6am to 6pm. The border opens a new way for backpackers to travel from Phnom Penh to HCMC. Previously, the only options were the bus from HCMC to PP via Moc Bai, the boat from Chau Doc, or flying. Now, those travelling on the Cambodian side can head down to Sianoukville (as many do anyway) and then take the coast road through Kampot and Kep, enter Vietnam and come through the Delta this way. From here they could take the boat from Rach Gia to Phu Quoc, then fly one-way to HCMC, or travel up through the delta themselves. Of course, they could do it all in reverse. And this is why Connections is looking at the Mekong entry/exit tour from/to this area to/from HCMC! Anyway, that’s another story.

Day three - having looked around the town itself (that was a damn fine ten minutes by the way) and the surrounding attractions (a couple of hours) on day two, I jokingly suggested we should go to Chau Doc. By 9am I was in charge of a little Neo, driving back down the coast road to Rach Gia, looking for the turn off to An Giang province. Back at Ha Tien`s premiere hotel, the knowledgeable staff had said around two hours to Chau Doc. One suggested it was 50km away. My ass suggested otherwise. In fact, after the speedo count on the way home ( yes, I had a bike with a working speedo), it was a 123km trip there, so a 250km round trip. I couldn’t sit down again for two days. After roughly three hours driving, and we arrived in Chau Doc. Entering the town was the main reason for my wife’s — let’s call it a ’strong desire’ — to come to Chau Doc, the Temple of Lady Chua Xu. People come here and wish for whatever they require. Happiness, luck, etc. Those who get it often donate things to the great Lady — often gold, or large dresses for her to wear on her great throne inside the temple.

Here, all the dresses that have been made for the lady are stored.

You don’t drive for three hours in the tropical sun without rewarding yourself — hence heading straight over the the Victoria Hotel in the heart of Chau Doc to sip an expensive but refreshing lemon juice on the banks of the Mekong River.

Finally, it was over to the market to pick up some of this famous ‘mam’ which I think is ‘mám’, but my wife is not here to ask so it’s only a guess. Bizarre, foul smelling stuff — and she bought three kilos of it.

After expressing disgust and horror solely through facial expressions, defeat was admitted and the mam went between my legs on the Neo.

The next morning, we were horribly late for the plane, arriving 5 minutes before departure time. The plane was waiting on the tarmac, all we had to do was get through the security check. Everything was fine, except the mam. I looked to my left and saw the VN airways guy walking towards the tarmac. Everything is in slow motion now, and off to my right, the misses is in full flow with the surely green-uniformed women at the x-ray machine. Left again, VNA man is raising his hands and making a cross sign to the staff manning the steps up to the old prop plane — he means, that’s it, close the doors. I march over to him with my finger raised in teacher style and say something like ‘Excuse me Sir, I would much prefer it if we could get on that flight so kindly ask them to wait a few more seconds….’. Chi gives up and leaves the building with a volley of verbal abuse, we trapse across the tarmac, one with steam coming out of their ears, and settle down for the return to relaxing Saigon….

So, Hà Nội. Nice. A ‘pleasanter’ city than Sài Gòn, I would have to say. Lakes and parks and more open space. Less traffic. Better air. The Old Quarter is charming. I have visions of this city in the future, perhaps fifty years down the line. All around modernization has taken hold and the city will be as developed as any other in Asia, but the Old Quarter will remain the same, and in doing so it will be one of the most attractive tourist destinations in the region….real history and tradition should be preserved in these streets, starting with the banning of cars, an embarrassment to those narrow streets.

Across Hanoi, I see less building and construction than in Saigon. I see less big chains taking hold like Highlands and Lotteria. This is of course relative to the populations of the two cities, but noticeable nonetheless.

Hồ Hoàn Kiếm

Đền Ngọc Sơn, my wife just visible through the incense sticks.

This was the start of our walking tour around the streets of the Old Quarter, which typically look something like this.

We had started with only a coffee in a traditional Càfê Giảng on Hàng Gai, so breakfast was a high priority. This was it, a voluminous bowl of bún riêu cua laced with cherry tomatoes and tofu.

No sooner had I stuffed that in my face and strolled along the street, the wife was once again making a noise that I now realize is associated with some kind of culinary frenzy, part of a subliminal mission to sample all the street food in this quaint portion of her country’s capital. I wasn’t complaining. First was the fried tofu dipped in a kind of lemony, sour sauce (bún đậu mắm tôm) . Very good. We sat on a street corner where two or three things were available, one of the other things being sweet bread balls that were deep fried (called bánh cam in HCMC).

Unlike HCMC, wares are easy to find. Each street in the Old Quarter has its own specialty after which the road is named - for example, Phố Chả Cá for the street that serves the special fried fish. Here, shops with goods for weddings stand side by side.

And toys. Some are very lifelike.

Later that evening we went to Công Viên Thống Nhất (Independence Park, previously Lenin Park) for a dusk stroll, along with half of Hà Nội.

Then it was back to the Old Quarter and off to a very famous restaurant, where I had one of the tastiest Vietnamese dishes I’ve ever had. The place was the renowned Chả Cá Lã Vọng. Wow. The longer it cooked, the better it tasted. I wanted to drink the oil from the pan and bask in its greasy deliciousness.

Hà Nội by night:

The following day we ventured to the Hồ Chí Minh mausoleum, where I practiced looking sombre. Of course, the pomp was worthy of royalty, let alone a national hero. The actual walk through was brief and subdued. In the picture, you can see the line of people waiting to pass through.

Next up was a walk around the complex, which includes the Museum of Hồ Chí Minh, and a hell of a lot of domestic tourists sweating it out.

Later that day we had a drive around Hồ Ty (West Lake). Here, an old man is fishing.

We then made it to the Museum of Ethnology, where the most interesting display I have seen about Vietnam is shown, that of life during the bao cấp period

That evening we visited Bobby Chinn’s restaurant. What a place — the food was fantastic, as was the atmosphere, and the man himself was walking around making the customers comfortable (Bobby has his own show on Discovery Travel & Living now).

The next morning, we went to Văn Miếu ( Temple of Literature), the first University in Vietnam. The history of the Confucian system of education is remarkable. You think students these days face pressure…..huh! Here, the stone tablets bear the names of those who passed the exams and the exams themselves.

Finally, I wanted to drive over the Red River and back, you know, just to ‘have a gander’.

And that was it, in pictures and words, our trip to Hà Nội.

As a seaside boy myself, my hometown being the beautiful Bournemouth, I adore the seaside and the lifestyle that goes with it. One thing you’ll never see in Bournemouth however is people having a seafood breakfast at 7am on the beach!

Below, vendors selling bánh mì chiên tôm, or shrimp fried in breadcrumbs.

Driving to the top of the small hill with the old French built lighthouse was a worthwhile exploration. The view is spectacular. Here is the very tip of the Vũng Tàu peninsular, ‘back beach’ to the north and ‘front beach’ to the south.

Here, my wife tries to impersonate an old Italian women. She got halfway through the ‘mamma mia’ but couldn’t keep a straight face any longer.

Descending, we pass the new ferry terminal (new some time in the last two years). No offence to the architect, but it looks like it was inspired by a loaf of bread. Plus it holds the very first Lotteria AND KFC in town. Fantastic!

Jesus! No really…it is.

Back at the hotel, we were never stuck for a ride.

In the evening we went to the popular Hải Sản Sống. It’s located right on the rocks. I took this from our table.

Just to chase away those images for a second, the rocks in front were crawling with rats, some even had little chopsticks and were dashing up to the table trying to nab a prawn off my plate. I spotted one leaning on a small wire fence with his arms folded, just glaring at me. Most unnerving.

After dinner we bundle over to the dog track. A real touristy attraction, this was.

Inspect the mutts that will lose money for you.

Into the traps….

And they’re off…..sorry for the crapness of this shot, but I had one chance - I blew it.

To celebrate the arrival of a new bridge that cuts journey time to 30 minutes and distance to only about 20 km, we drove to Long Hải. Somehow we ended up in this small village halfway there. The seafront was totally undeveloped, people living in small houses right on the beach. What a place to live!

Days or weeks of doing absolutely nothing apart from swimming and napping. Living in sandals and shorts without a care in the world. Spending long evenings with nothing to think about except how damn lucky you are to be able to spend long evenings thinking about nothing. This is the kind of place it can happen, one of many dotted around the SE Asia circuit.

All of JB is set in a garden setting, with lush tropical plants sprouting up over hammocks spread throughout the mazy walkways.

And the beach looks something like this:

Aside from this, the wildlife is another amazing part of the area around Jungle Beach. Sylvio lists a number of creatures..Pigmy Loris, White Belly SEA Eagle, Malay Eagle, Serpent Stripe Eagle, Mouse Deer, Spotted Deer, Flying Squirrel, King Cobra, Python and Stick Bug. Most amazingly of all however are the monkeys…..Sylvio explains all:

We have seen the primates off and on from the beginning not knowing what we were looking at…Our 1st encouter was when I went up the hill taking a Aussie dude along, who was trailing behind me quite a ways… being so used to being in the forest / mountain, I managed to get under a tree where at leat 2 dozen were sleeping, this guy comes noisily around the bend, wakes them up and they take off in a fury, scaring the shit out of me…but what a trip to look up and see these critters, or should I say monsters of the trees taking off… This was summer 2002.

Since then we have had many guests who have seen them from close and far…but it was Jan. 13, 2006 when Shane, from Campbell river BC, Canada that we got our 1st set of very nice pictures, these were e-mailed all over the place; CucPhuong primate center north VietNam, CatBa island primate center, HaLong bay VietNam, San Diego State University…’

‘Then on March 15, 2006, the folks from CucPhuong Primate center, came here and we went out trekking looking for stools to get a DNA analysis done, soto get an actual what is what about them…

Here we have it, a DISTINC GROUPING of Black Shank Douc Langurs, [ Dr.Christian Roos, Primate Genetics, German primate center, Gottingen Germany] and it solves a query going over 10 years about 2 langurs confiscated in HCMC, that folks had no idea where they had come from as they were different DNA grouping from all other Black Shank Douc Langurs found in SEA.’

Here are some pictures of the Langurs courtesy of JB.

You can find more information about the Langurs at the website of the ‘Endangered Primate Rescue Center’ in Cuc Phuong National Park here.

Somehow I forgot to finish off my report of the Cambodia trip — well it’s just a few pictures really. Pictures however, that will perhaps bear some comic value — maybe you’ll smile a little (as if you were passing a little wind), maybe you’ll call your friend in from the other room, or maybe you’ll shift your chair back a little from the desk, put your head in your hands between your legs and shake it gently from side to side in disbelief.

Now seriously, I hope you’ll respect the tone of this post considering I’ve been in Asia for around three and a half years and here in HCM for over two of them — so when I say the things you see on the road in Cambodia are probably unparalleled in this universe, you gotta believe me. I mean here in Nam I see guys driving their motorbikes with huge sheets of glass and I hardly blink. I see cyclos with scaffold ten times their length doing a left turn into oncoming traffic — I dodge the approaching beams actually thinking about getting home in time for Sportcenter on ESPN. Over in Cambodia, I was leaning out of the window trying to angle my camera screaming at Chi ‘Look! Would you bloody look at that!’. Obviously expats living in Cambodia are used to it. Just a few kilometers from home and I’m a stinking tourist all over again.

This guy has a stack of bicycles that are bigger than the actual van taking them.

This van was literally on two wheels. The entire left side of it was rusted through and the whole thing looked like it was about to disintegrate. This is the means of public transport for some Cambodians, sitting atop a van or a pickup. The vehicles are loaded until not one more limb can be squeezed in, there must be 20 people sometimes, that’s forgetting the cargo.

Finally…this one….which is just…..errr….well….funny? Or ridiculous?

This contraption was commonplace. It’s a huge net which the fisherman can raise and lower out of the water using the ballast you can see hanging above the bamboo platform.

As a mother and her children paddle by, a one woman floating market of clothes and material is ‘pulling in’ between two water bourne houses.

The boat we caught was more like the water bus. One of those backpacker specials…. someone making a mint out of cramming pasty white faces into the hull. The boat would drift slowly through riverside villages, occasionally revving the engine to signify it’s arrival. Those who needed a ride were ferried to the waiting boat by a family member, sometimes their kids.

So, five hours down, and just before the ass-numbness became chronic, we stopped for lunch. The wife still seemed to be enjoying herself. All was well. After lunch, the ‘low water’ part of the journey began. This entailed navigating the bends in what was normally a river now reduced to not much more than a stream, vegetation on the bank above looking as thirsty as most of the passengers. With the vocation of staring out of the boat at the scenery pretty much removed, there wasn’t a lot to do except 1) concentrate on what it feels like to sit on a wooden plank, 2) listen to the droaning of the engine, housed in a wooden box about 4 metres to my right or 3) looking at my wife’s face, which was staring at me as if I had just called her a stupid cow, which even if I had have done she wouldn’t have been able to hear because of the deafening noise. Chi said to me later it’s amazing how all the westerners simply refuse to complain about the conditions, pain and suffering they must undeniably be in. Just as the backside was issuing its most violent of complaints (not audible, just muscular) we unexpectedly stopped and were ordered from the boat.

The water was too low to continue any further, but those harbouring any hope of us being ‘near’ Battambang would have done well to look around them. I for one couldn’t see anything resembling a city, a town or a village, let alone a corrugated iron shack. The only thing visible was a field of ploughed dirt and two pick-ups. I knew it would be the end of my marriage if Chi realised we were expected to clamber into the back of the pick-up, so I quickly secured seats in the cab whilst all the backpackers pretended to be having a good time. After about 30 minutes of carefully arranging limbs and securing bags, we were ready to go.

Doesn’t look too bad does it. Well try sitting on the edge of the truck over a road that looks like this. This is one of the places we got stuck.

It took three hours from boat to Battambang, in distance no more than 35km.

With all that said and done, and me unable to explain the ‘joys of travelling’ to Chi, we had arrived in Cambodia’s second city, Battambang. It is split in two by a river that looks like this

and full of streets that look like this

and a market that looks like this

Our journey took us from the capital Phnom Penh to Siem Reap (base for Ankor exploration) and then to Battambang, Cambodia’s second city. The map is from here.

The trip from big brother Vietnam, HCMC, takes around 5 hours to the Cambodian capital (by bus). Comparison of the two cities is futile, Saigon being a sprawling bastion of a booming economy whilst Phnom Penh still resembles a provincial town around goldrush time. For a few kilometers after the border huge Casinos line the road, a legacy of the illegality of gambling in Vietnam. If you really want to ruin you and your family’s life, Cambodia gives the foolish man a chance to jump across the border and do so. The Casinos even got together to build a bridge in the locality for players to jump off once they lost everything — or maybe it was there beforehand anyway.

Enough! As you would expect PP oozes colonial-ness, a prime example being the old Raffles Hotel.

Like a gameshow girl showing off the tumble dryer, Minh Chi models a nice green area that looks down towards the spire of the town pagoda.

Does this everyday street scene look like somewhere familiar?

The central market, with PP’s biggest shopping centre off to the right (with the domed roof).

The city has some nice park areas, however they are strewn with litter, as are the streets. The main focus of the city is the riverfront, where the Tonle Sap (Sap River) visibly merges into the Mekong. Here you can see package tourists dining in posh restaurants whilst landmine victims and the homeless beg for anything they can. Whole families can still be seen sleeping on the streets of the capital, and also in park areas. The expat community have a yummy choice of cafes, restuarants and bars to satisfy both thirst and hunger. The idea of this disparity always has me a little confused about what to make of it, especially with the backpackers who treat SE Asia like Disneyland.

There is one word I can use to describe the temples of Ankor - circus. I remember my one previous visit to Siem Reap and Ankor Wat in June 2003 being a much more peaceful experience. The town has changed into a night time freakshow with thousands of tourists strolling around ‘pub street’ and it’s adjoining alleys, whereas before there seemed to be little or no nightlife. Around the temples, coaches, motorbikes and tuc tucs transport tourists between various sites, most of which you can’t move in for loud tour groups. The temples of Ankor should be a place of quiet and reflection — this is almost impossible. The only hope is to give up the main attractions and find the smaller less popular temple ruins. However, Ankor Wat itself is unmissable.

The infamous steps at Ankor Wat — near vertical.

This scene looks like something out of a CS Lewis novel — you can even see a unicorn in the middle.

Looking back from Ankor Wat. The odd white circle in the distance is the Ankor ballon, which will take you about 200m above the ground. We have one of those in Bournemouth too.

An indication of the unbelievable number of tourists is that some of the hundreds of tuc tucs carry advertising!

A typical scene inside a temple complex : Koreans.

The funfair in full swing.

The river

Tran Phu from the ground

and from the air

These shacks still survive at the northern end of Tran Phu St. They overlook the new coastal bridge and the bay back towards the city, what a juicy piece of land.

The city

The countryside

And finally, something we can’t deny, ’soaking in mineral mud is very interesting’, as the sign states.