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INDOCHINA (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam)
April/May 2001
Our route in South East Asia was: Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia,
Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.
KINGDOM OF CAMBODIA.
Once through customs and immigration at Poipet we set of on
“the most dangerous road in Cambodia” (according to our
guidebook). First there had been the soldiers of the Khmer Rouge
Army and then there were the out-of-uniform armed guerrillas.. The
road, though subject to bandit activity, was opened to foreigners
in 1998.
We were endeavouring to reach the famous Khmer temple of Angkor
Wat.
The dirt road had enormous potholes. The first make-shift bridge
had some loose rattling logs. The next stretch had been washed
away, bridge and all. We had to take a deviation through the rice
paddies. Reports of the 6 million undetonated landmines came to
mind. On one bridge a large truck had broken through the struts
and was still stuck with wheels protruding. Through the rice
paddies again! After a very rutted, bumpy section we reached a
long bridge. This time there were only two strips of planks,
wheel-width, lengthways across the cross members. A man walked
backwards, gesturing; indicating how many millimetres from
plunging into the river we were. On the other side we were
relieved and quite happy to pay him 4000 Riel ($1). It was humid
and hot. The 150km to Siem Reap took the entire day.
All though we were tired, we drove on to see breathtaking
Angkor Wat at sunset. The next days we explored the vast
rainforest park with other monuments built by kings of the mighty
Khmer Empire a thousand years ago. Some had not yet been rescued
from the jungle and had strangling roots and vines growing over
the carved masonry.
We often returned to admire the grandeur of Angkor Wat, the 450m
causeway over vast moats and the detail of decoration stone
sculpture.
The Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot (of “the killing fields” infamy),
had destroyed all art, musical instruments and books. Education
was thought to be bourgeois. They killed teachers and even people
wearing glasses (presumed to be educated). Consequently the
country is now trying to catch up the tremendous backlog in
education. There is also a revival of former arts, including
shadow puppetry. We enjoyed a splendid dinner and a traditional
royal dance performance at the French colonial Grand Hotel
d’Angkor.
French influence could also still be seen in the excellent
“baguettes” eaten with meaty soup for breakfast. Local ‘Angkor’
beer was good and a lifesaver in that climate!
Although April was the dry season, we suffered quite a few mozzy
bites at the open-air theatre. As Cambodia also has a chloroquin
and proguanil resistant strain of malaria, we were on a regimen of
doxicycline and paludrine daily and chloroquin weekly.
There were many hotels being built in Siem Reap. Tourism has great
potential. For now, Cambodia survives mostly from foreign aid. We
found Cambodians smilingly friendly. Even post card pushing
children were charming and limbless beggars quite tolerable. At
one in 250 of population, Cambodia has the largest number of
amputees; landmine victims.
We took the same bad road over “aim-and-pray-bridges” back to
Thailand. This time they were working on the road. When we
encountered an obstruction, impatient Jan decided to venture off
road through the ploughed fields (land mines!). At the next river
it required low range first gear to get back onto the track. (The
on board chassis welding equipment was to come in handy again
later.)
LAO PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
The officials at the shantytown border post were easy going and
laid back, like all of Lao. We soon saw wide-open spaces and
water buffalo wallowing in the mud. There were only occasional
wooden houses on stilts. In the shade underneath, women were
weaving on foot looms. Babies were in baskets swinging from the
rafters. Children found a cool place on a slatted platform. Men
seemed to laze around in hammocks all day.
A
new bridge brought us to Pakse. A former Lao Royal
residence had become a mediocre Communist style hotel. The lunch
was awful but the teak interior wall panelling was still superb.
The new tar road ended soon after, and became a series of
atrocious muddy deviations as the road along the Mekong to
Vientiane was being rebuilt with Japanese aid.
Blissfully sparsely populated Lao has vast natural forests. Lunch
and overnight stops, in the jungle and next to rivers were easy to
find. Nights were hellishly hot. It was a toss up between a slight
breath of air outside with lots of bugs or the inadequate fan and
heat within Dipli’s protection. One night in the middle of
nowhere, guys with torches came to collect bullfrogs. The next day
we saw the “catch” at the market. The choice, covered in flies,
was: deep-fried, barbecued or hopping about in a basket.
We noticed that the women all wear hand woven sarongs. The French
had taught the Lao to bake baguettes and they have them, sliced in
half lengthways, drenched with sweetened condensed milk.
We entered the Lao capital, Vientiane, through a mock up of
the Arc de Triomphe. The city was named by the French and has
retained the name under Communist rule. It has a sleepy atmosphere
with faded French colonial buildings and some run down Soviet
style places. The Buddhist temples (“wats”) were beautiful and
brightly painted. One temple had 6500 Buddha sculptures. We were
pleased (after some effort) to spot the typical Lao-style ones.
In a main street a man flagged us down to chat. A few blocks
further he stopped again to invite us to stay. He was an Ozzy with
a Burmese wife. It was great to have good company, a nice garden
and house with all the mod cons plus e-mail and home baked bread.
One “sunny” afternoon, we were all spruced up to visit the
Consulate of Myanmar (Burma). As we touched the gate, two of the
three dogs shot out down the road. The next second the heavens
opened with a tropical monsoon thunder storm. After searching the
busy roads we, soaking wet, dragged back our hosts’ drenched
pedigree beasts through ankle deep mud.
We set off again but received unwelcome news: Myanmar borders are
still closed to overland travellers. (Myanmar has a military
dictatorship government and there are many anti government
refugees along the Thailand border. There is also opium smuggling
in these areas and regular skirmishes take place between Thai and
Myanmar soldiers; with the latter often involved in the drug
trade.)
The local market had a large variety of high quality hand-woven
cotton and silk sarongs. After a hot day in Vientiane, the best
part was watching the sun set over the Mekong River sipping a cold
‘Beer-Lao’.
Each country in SE Asia has its own writing system, of which only
Malaysia and Vietnam use the Roman alphabet, so finding one’s way
is always ‘interesting’!
VIETNAM
Vehicles with steering on the right are not allowed into Vietnam.
Before entering the country, Jan had to change the steering again
from right-hand drive to left-hand drive. As RHD is used in
Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia & Australia, we would not otherwise have bothered to
change it for the relatively short part through the ex-French
Indochina. (A 1999 Land Rover expedition from the UK to
Singapore, upon reaching Vietnam, had been compelled to rent
trucks at great expense to move/piggy back their vehicles through
the country.)
Rumours about difficult officials and corrupt police made us
uncertain about whether we would be allowed into Vietnam; but as
it turned out a recent order to the police to “be nice to
foreigners” ensured that we had none of the notorious hassles of
the past. At the border we had to line up with rows of trucks
taking timber from Laos to Vietnam. We were sickened at the sight
of loads and loads of logs; one 200-year old tree in three pieces
on one truck! The officials were efficient. It cost only $1 (or 14
500 Dong) each, as bribe, and we were in the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam. Then it was down the winding misty mountain pass.
At the town of Vinh we stopped to buy the famous peanut
brittle in rice paper. There we met our first staring squad.
Children surrounded us and hung onto Dipli. Four little slant-eyed
faces were even pressed against the windscreen. They told us that
there were two school sessions each day. At midday both sessions
were on the roads. The narrow way was absolute chaos. Some
scholars on bicycles were riding four abreast. There were also
thousands of motorbikes and heavy loads on two-wheeled vehicles.
When honking trucks and buses came, there was nowhere to go
because the rice grows right up against the kerb. It felt like
India all over again!
The bright green rice fields were picturesque, though, and the
women in conical straw hats, carrying shoulder slung bamboo poles
supporting two baskets, very photogenic. They all wear black or
navy trousers; not a single dress/sarong to be seen on a
Vietnamese woman! Property tax is based on street frontage, so
that houses have only a single room-width facing the road –
stretching like a double storey tunnel towards the rear; even
obviously expensive and well built houses had this unique format.
Vietnamese seemed to be very industrious, particularly after Laos!
It is also one of the most densely populated countries in the
world. As we approached Hanoi the mayhem and noise
increased.
It was nearly 1st of May and red Communist hammer and
sickle flags were lining the main roads. We were relieved to reach
the new 5-star Hanoi Horizon Hotel. We ordered lunch and went to
see the manager. He said we could stay for free - in their parking
lot.
It was conveniently located to explore the narrow streets of
Hanoi’s old quarter, with traditional trades and crafts. After
tales of war, the parks, lakes and tree lined boulevards with
French Colonial buildings were a pleasant surprise. The first days
we were petrified to cross the streets but we learned to walk over
in slow motion, so that the vehicles had enough time to avoid us.
Internet was cheap. Our favourite restaurant was “Indochine” with
traditional music and décor. Excellent dishes were ‘meat cooked in
bamboo’ and ‘beef rolled in toasted coconut’. We avoided the area
which had about 60 dog meat restaurants…
A
delightful entertainment was seeing the unique Water puppet
performance. Figures and characters and vessels appear from, dive
into, and sail upon water. Behind a screen, the puppeteers stand
waist deep in water, moving poles and pulling strings.
As we did in Moscow, to see Stalin, we stood before the mausoleum
in line for an hour to file past Ho Chih Minh’s pale embalmed
body. He had been the founder of the Vietnamese Communist party
and led North Vietnam for 23 years. A very modern museum about his
life; and art symbolising his philosophy was most impressive;
glorifying their leaders as is usual in Communist regimes.
Vietnam also has areas with attractive unique scenery. The karst
formations of limestone hills form islands in the sea or in rice
fields. Erosion of these formations produces interesting caves. We
were appalled to see lots of stalactites for sale by the roadside.
On the way back we looked for bomb craters and other evidence of
the American war. All we saw were heaps of scrapped sand ladders.
We filled up with diesel. In the office where we had to pay, two
people were sitting on the floor counting a heap of money - waist
high. (14500 Dong to the dollar but the largest notes are D5000).Our
odometer (since leaving home) turned to 100 000km in Vietnam, but
it would be another 5000km before we reach Singapore and the end
of the road in Asia.
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