Third times a charm

Friday morning came around and too soon we were again partaking in the melancholy ritual of packing our bags and getting ready to move on to our next stop. It was with a very heavy heart that we left Melaka; it had really been the place that made us fall in love with Malaysia, and not just because the beautiful spacious 27^th floor apartment. Our return trip to KL entailed an unremarkable (so, pleasant) bus journey back to the city and by late afternoon we were settled into our hotel room making plans for our remaining time in Malaysia before our flight to Phuket on Monday evening.

The following morning, following hearty breakfast of toast and tea, we took the train north to Batu caves, about 45 minutes outside the city centre. The large network of natural caves in the limestone mountains are home to a series of shrines that serve as a religious focal point for the roughly 1.8 million Hindus in Malaysia. The caves are entered by ascending a large flight of brightly painted steps from the south west, next to which stands a 43 meter high gold painted stature of Lord Murugan, to whom the shrine is dedicated. The large, airy cavern within hosts a small temple, colourfully decorated with statuettes, anamorphs and geometric patterns, as well as several statues and murals fashioned n to the rock. Out the other side and up another set of steps is an opening in the roof of the cave which pours light down on to another smaller temple where devotees can buy offerings of flowers and fruit to place at the alter of the shrine, most of which are then promptly pilfered by one of the several dozen monkeys that have made the caves their home.

After an hour or so enjoying the cool air of the caves and the comical antics of the monkeys we set off back into town where we had planned to head to our hotel via the Central Market. We were hoping this would be a good opportunity to pick up some unique souvenirs as the market had a very good reputation but sadly it was somewhat smaller and a little more run-of-the-mill that we were expecting. It still killed an hour or so though, and so after a stroll back to our hotel through little India it was more or less time for some dinner. We went for a curry at the neighbouring Betel Leaf restaurant where we had been on our previous visit to KL and, once again, it didn’t disappoint, before grabbing a beer from the corner shop to enjoy on the roof of the hotel and watch the light display on KL tower.

The next day – our last full day in Malaysia – we caught a Grab to Kuala Lumpur Bird Park located in the grounds of the city’s extensive botanical gardens. The park was established in the early 90’s and features one of the largest free-flying aviaries in the world. The entry to the park starts with the aviary which consists of a massive net suspended from numerous metal towers across a small natural valley around a series of lakes and small waterfalls. Freely roaming the aviary are hundreds of Peacocks, Storks, Pelicans, Egrets, Ibis, Exotic Pigeons and countless other smaller species (some of which we suspect weren’t supposed to be there – in fact at one point we spotted a stork standing on the roof looking rather lonesome, so the aviary presumably isn’t fool-proof).

When we arrived the free-flying birds were having their morning feed and so in some parts of the park the pathways were obstructed by hordes of ravenous birds flapping and squabbling as the staff slopped out a meal of fruit and fresh fish. One of the storks took exception to the toes of some nearby children which created quite a commotion, and another took a bite of the back of my leg before then following me around as I tried to put more than a beaks distance between me and it (I am very tasty, so it was understandable). Helpfully, the staff simply told visitors ‘do not touch the birds’ but offered no advice on what to do if a stork is following you around trying to nibble at your feet. Still, the extent to which the birds are accustomed to being around humans meant we had a unique opportunity to get up close to these animals and, whilst it would be preferable to see them free in the wild, the ample space they are granted here is about as good as captivity can get.

After moving on from the free-fly aviary we headed into a smaller aviary filled with Parrots and Lorikeets. In here you could pay for a small metal dish which a member of staff would fill with liquid feed. This would of course immediately attract a swarm of flapping and colour as the birds swooped down to get at the food, landing on our arms and shoulders and sometimes heads as they vied for space. One lorikeet took a particularly keen interest in eating Katy’s top, strangely enough prioritising that over eating any actual food (Katy is also very tasty, so again it was totally understandable).

After we left the Parrot and Lorikeet enclosure, we headed down a short hill to a large area for flightless birds featuring Emus Ostriches and Cassowaries. The Cassowaries are truly pre-historic looking birds; similar to an ostrich though more squat and with much thicker, dinosaur like legs. The head is featherless, like a giant turkey, and with pink and blue face and wattles and with a yellow-brown crown the shape of a shark fin. The eyes are like owls’ eyes, piercing and intense, and even with the fence and the ditch between us the bird the look it gave us was chilling. They are known as the ‘world’s most dangerous birds’ for the brutal and sometimes fatal injuries they can inflict when provoked and suffice to say you certainly would not want to encounter one in the wild.

The final feature of the day for us to enjoy was the Bird Show in a small amphitheatre down by the lake at the far end of the park. The 20 minute show was something of a throwback; where similar shows in animal parks in Europe have become more focussed on education, conservation and displaying the animal’s natural behaviour, this show featured about 5 or 6 parrots, macaws and cockatiels who performed a plethora of stunts and tricks all to a soundtrack of instrumental pop music and the the amplified enthusiasm of the host. It was disappointing that there wasn’t more of an educational bent to the show and watching the animals play games and perform tricks purely for the amusement of the crowd eft us a little uneasy, but the kids were thoroughly enjoying it and if the birds were really unhappy they could have just flown off. Or maybe I’m just being a snooty self-righteous westerner and should get over myself.

On to the final day then where our flight to Phuket wasn’t due to take off until 9pm, so after packing our bags we had a few hours to kill before making our way to the airport. We headed over to KLCC park one final time to visit the highly rated Aquarium, accessible through a never ending and poorly signposted sequence of tunnels filled with shopping malls under the park in which we got completely lost. We eventually found the aquarium though and paid the hefty entrance fee of £24. Good job we’ve still got a surplus to work through. Once inside we found ourselves in a dimly lit area filled with model rock pools each with a swarm of children eagerly prodding every poor life form that hadn’t had the good sense to hide under a rock. We had hoped that by visiting on a weekday we would avoid the busier times where there would be lots of families with young kids. We did, however we never thought to factor in school trips. Not to worry, we quickly made our way on to the next section, down a set of steps to a rainforest themed area which featured an impressive cylindrical tank reaching all the way to the ceiling of the upper floor.

From there we made our way round a few more exhibits until we arrived at the main attraction of the aquarium, one of the world’s longest underwater tunnels. The tunnel floor is essentially a baggage carousel so you can just hop on at the entrance and let the conveyer work your way around the exhibit like human sushi. The tunnel zig-zags around through the tank which is brimming with sharks, rays, sea turtles and numerous smaller fish and aquatic plant life. It takes about 15 minutes to get from one end of the tunnel to the other and after you leave there are a few more wall to ceiling glass panels allowing a great view into the tank.

And that was about it, the aquarium is well presented, much more a focus on conservation and education than the bird park, which is nice, but save for the underwater tunnel is doesn’t have a huge amount going for it. We were done in less than an hour and left a little underwhelmed given the entry fee. It was a shame to have a slightly anti-climactic ending to our time in Malaysia, but we made up for it by having Sushi before heading to the airport!

Back to Thailand then!

Muddy Estuaries and the Pearl of the Orient

The Monday that we departed Singapore for Malaysia’s Capital Kuala Lumpur happened to fall on my Birthday, meaning that whilst Katy got to send her Birthday in the chocolate museum, I got to spend mine on a 6 hour bus ride. It’s a cruel world…

Anyway, a bit of birthday fortune smiled of us as at last, for the first time in our 7 months of galivanting around the world, we had a pleasant experience on a bus. We arrived in Kuala Lumpur in the late afternoon and caught a taxi across town to Birdsnest hostel on the outskirts of China Town. After having more than a week of temples, Grand Prix’s and walking and walking and walking, we decided on a bit of downtime for our first couple of days in KL. Instead we caught up on The Great British bake-off and The Handmaids Tale whilst relaxing on the roof terrace with the iguanas (I bet nobody’s ever used that sentence before).

Kualar Lumpur, which in Malay means ‘Muddy Estuary’, is currently in the midst of a rather nasty bout of haze; heavy pollution caused by the burning off of vegetation in Indonesia. It happens about this time every year, but this year it’s particularly bad and limits visibility to about a mile or so whilst giving the air a strangely twilight quality, even in the middle of the day. The haze has quite serious long-term health implications for those who live here and as such people are being advised to limit the time they’re spending outside and some schools and public offices have been closed. Those in the city for a few days needn’t worry though, and actually it did help us feel a little less guilty about not getting out and seeing the sights since couldn’t see them anyway.

KL is a huge, bustling and somewhat disjointed city, sprawling between a number of small hills without a clear centre, but compared to other capital cities with visited (With the exception of Singapore) it is pretty clean, spacious and easy to get around. Rapid and ongoing urban development gives it a remarkably modern feel with a well-developed metro system, well-kept public parks and glass-clad skyscrapers popping up from seemingly every street corner. Malaysia is a majority Muslim country, but the constitution explicitly protects freedom of religion for the country’s myriad minority groups and as such the city is an enthralling fusion of the cultures and religions that make the country what it is, permeating every aspect of the city from the street food and the architecture, to the faint soundtrack of calls to prayer and the extortionate price of beer.

By the time we got to our last day in KL the haze had cleared a little and we headed to KLCC park in the centre of the business district to visit the city’s most iconic landmark; the Petronas Towers. At 452 meters tall, they were the tallest buildings in the world when they were completed in 1997, holding the record until 2004 when they were surpassed by Tapei 101 in Taiwan. I remember seeing pictures of the tower when they were first completed, sticking out like beacons amongst the low, grey apartment buildings, tightly-packed industrial complexes and slums. The Petronas Towers were somewhat a statement of intent from a poor but fast-developing nation, and it’s impressive what’s been achieved in such a short period of time. Today, the towers just about peak out from the swathes of sky-scrapers, malls and new housing complexes surrounding them. Within a few years they will no longer be the tallest towers in KL, such is the pace of development in this part of the world.

We worked our way in to the building in the late afternoon and headed to the visitor entrance in the basement of the north tower. From there we were escorted through the airport-style security and in to one of the buildings 38 lifts to take us to the 40^th floor where the two towers are connected by an enclosed two-story glass and steel sky-bridge. Here we were given 15 minutes to enjoy the view and play around with the two large interactive screens that inform you about the other buildings that can be seen from this vantage point. The view from here was already pretty spectacular, watching the traffic hundreds of meters below us, and it was bizarre to think that we weren’t even halfway up! The view was rather restricted by the towers either side of us, although it was a great vantage point from which to get a true sense of the sale of the buildings and what an impressive feat of engineering they are as they disappear out of view above the roof of the bridge.

Following this we were escorted back to the lifts and sent on our way up to the 86^thfloor, which is a dedicated viewing level complete with a small museum about the tower’s construction and a gift shop. At 375 meters up in the air, this was by quite some way the highest I’d ever been up in a human-made structure. It’s high enough that you don’t even think about the height when you look out, like the part of your mind that would be alarmed by being so high up just can’t process what it’s seeing and shuts off. The view from here was, well, it’s been a long time coming, but finally, after 7 months of travelling, we have been unlucky with the weather. The haze, which had receded to an extent earlier in the day blended with the greying clouds of the passing rain shower to severely restrict our view. That wasn’t to say we couldn’t see anything, but anything more than a couple of miles away was little more than a grey silhouette (and from that height, a couple of miles visibility isn’t very much). It wasn’t as good as it could’ve been but hey, we’re British, appreciating things despite the weather is in our DNA, and it was still a remarkable view, especially as the light began to fade and the city began to glow below us.

The following morning, we set off from KL to the island of Penang, which markets itself as the ‘pearl of the orient (one of many places to do so, I’m sure I’ve heard that strapline before). We caught the train from the old central station just across the river from The Birdsnest and set off on our 4 hour ride up northwest along the peninsula, wishing we’d known ahead of time how bloody cold it would have been on board (it was probably about 24C, but to us these days that’s practically freezing). We arrived at the wonderfully named ‘Butterworth Station’ and once we had thawed out from our refrigeration made our way to the ferry port to head over to the city of George Town on Penang Island.

The island, which is just over 100 square miles in size and lies about 2 miles off the coast of the mainland, was formerly part of the Sultanate of Kedah until the late 18^th century when control of the island was ceded to the East India Company in exchange for British military protection against Burma and Siam. The EIC used the island as a trading post with India and China and in so doing founded the city of Georgetown on the islands north-eastern tip. Today, Penang Island, along with a roughly similar sized stretch of the coastline, form the federal state of Penang, one of the 13 states of modern Malaysia. The island is home to about 750,000 people making George Town Malaysia’s second biggest city and a growing hub for domestic and international tourism.

After freezing on the train and getting drenched by the sudden monsoon rains that pelted the ferry as we made our way across the strait of Penang, we were really rather looking forward to spending a week unwinding in the Airbnb we had booked ourselves. The old-quarter of George Town up near the port is still home to many original colonial buildings, but the urban sprawl to the south of the and all along the Eastern coast the island is dominated by high-rise apartment buildings, amongst which was housed our AirBnB on the 29^th floor facing out north over the old town and the Penang strait.

For the next week then we made leisurely work of exploring the town, the hills in the centre of the island and the full range of the wonderful sushi restaurant on the ground floor of the building we were staying in, all whilst contributing healthily to Malaysia’s economy by virtue of the ‘sin tax’ applied to the beer we were buying from the local 7/11.

In the centre of George Town and dominating the skyline is the 68 story Komptar Tower, which was expanded a few years ago to include a new viewing platform and rooftop bar as well as an indoor theme park around the base. We spent the best part of a day here being entertained and, at times, completely bemused by the hap-hazard mix of genuinely entertaining and comically terrible attractions such as the definitely-not-a-jurrasic-park-ripoff ‘Jurassic Research Centre’. The JRC (cool acronym, I’ll give them that) starts with a short briefing from a legitimate palaeontologist explaining an actor spouting nonsense about the dinosaurs we were about to see, warning us not to feed them or get too close, lest they eat us! Onward we ventured then into a small museum section filled with plaster-cast replicas of unspecified bones and some inaccurate information about dinosaurs, before proceeding to the ‘dinosaur hospital’ where actors is lab coats tended to a model of a stegosaurus and we had the wonderful opportunity to pet a baby dinosaur. Very surreal. Next we went outside into the courtyard of the tower to find a small enclosure filled with anatomically suspect animatronic dinosaurs whose cheap rubbery body parts oscillated unnervingly every time they moved, all the while accompanied by a tinny looping soundtrack of roaring and squawking effects definitely not lifted from the Jurassic Park films. It was a very strange and beautifully awful experience and we couldn’t stop laughing pretty much the whole way through.

Other highlights of our day included the Durian Experience, the Pirates 7D(!?) Cinema, The Magical Carousel (where the C wwas so heavily styalised that it looked like the ride was called ‘Magical Arousel’) and the World of Mirrors (there were more than 17, to be fair). All in all, it was £20 very, very well spent, especially as all around the ‘theme park’ were unnerving waxwork look-a-likes of celebrities as well as copious amounts of Halloween theming. As an aside, we’ve been genuinely surprised that in a Majority Muslim country with sizeable Chinese and Indian minorities has embraced Halloween to the extent that it has. It’s everywhere! Even though it’s still a month away, every commercial district has decorations up and are advertising special Halloween events. Its reassuringly secular if nothing else, I guess.

We capped off the days…unique… experience by making our way to the top of the tower to admire the view. It’s not quite Petronas Towers, but it’s still pretty good. Also, the top of the building is home to MALAYSIA’S ONE AND ONLY GLASS-BOTTOMED RAINBROW BRIDGE ATTACHED TO A BUILDING!!! Which was also pretty cool, if somewhat over-hyped. Overall, and despite the curmudgeonly cynicism which I hope is conveyed here, it was a good laugh, and a nice change of pace from the usual tourism we had been doing.

Our final day in Penang started with a walking tour around the old town. Penang tourism board provides this as a free service, employing a licensed guide (Our guide, Ron, was very keen to point out that he had one of these) to take tourists around the city. As a free tour we had to ensure we were at the starting point in the Tourist Information centre before 10am to register, and it’s a good job we did, as the 20 available places were quickly filled and by the time the tour started at 10:30, as many people again had been turned away. Lord knows what it’s like in the high season, you’d probably need to be there about 5am (I’m just proofreading this blog aloud to Katy who would like to point out that this was HER joke so she may receive appropriate credit).

Our tour took us on a whistle-stop tour of some of George Towns more interesting historic sites, including the house of the former Chinese Mafia chief, the oldest still standing building in the city, the Kapitan Kelling Mosque -noteworthy because it has Stars of David integrated into the architecture- and Han Jiang Ancestral Temple, built by Chinese Teochew migrants in the early 20^th century. As we made our way around Ron regaled us with the history of the city, focussing on the migratory waves of the many communities that make up modern Penang and how they organised their lives and interacted with each other, as well as the lingering effects of British Colonialism. There were also some insights into modern Penang and how it expresses itself, most notably through the murals and street art that can be found all around the old town.

Having been to countries that were once part of the Spanish and French empires, it’s interesting now to come to one that was part of the British and to see the impact that that has had on the culture here. It shows up in some obvious ways, such as driving on the left, the 3-prong plug sockets, the ready availability of Cadbury’s chocolate and the red telephone and post boxes, to the more idiosyncratic; understanding the value of orderly queueing, people saying ‘sorry’ when they inadvertently bump in to each other and the little white-on-brown road signs for tourist information. Also, English is very widely spoken here, Malay is the official language but there are so many ethnic minorities here that don’t speak Malay that English has become the de-facto lingua franca. Most people speak Malay and English, or Tamil and English, or Mandarin and English and so English is the go-between for locals and foreigners alike. It’s kind of a microcosm of Asia as a whole and perhaps a window on to what much of the world will be like in another couple of generations.

Once our tour was over, we had some lunch to escape the increasing intensity of the midday sun and then caught a taxi over to the base of Penang Hill, the 830 meter high peak of the ridge of hills that dissect the centre of the island. At the base of the hill we boarded the Penang Hill railway, a Funicular railway which was built in 2010, replacing an older and smaller Funicular built by the British in the early 20^th Century. The ride is part tourist attraction and part transport infrastructure and can get you to the top of the hill in about 5 minutes, which is good, because the staff really cram you in. Still, it’s novel and fun way to travel.

Once at the top the drop in temperature and humidity is really noticeable. The British built the Funicular originally to be able to easily access the gardens and country retreats they were busy building at the top. It’s easy to see why the location appealed so much, it’s cool, relatively dry and has a very pleasant sea breeze. The British Colonials even established a number of hospitals at the top for those suffering from tropical diseases.

At the top are numerous attractions to enjoy, ranging from the sky walk and several restaurants, through to a ‘zombie apocalypse’ (no idea) and the misleadingly named ‘Owl Museum’. We were here however to engage in something far more wholesome, visiting ‘The Habitat’ a very well kept and well-presented nature reserve that features several suspended paths through the canopy as well as an elevated looping walkway that sits atop the highest point of the hill. From the walkway it was possible to see all the way around the island and as far as the mainland in the distance in all it’s hazy glory. Sadly, we couldn’t spend to long up there as a thunderstorm was rolling in, and being on top of a large metal walkway suspended by tall metal supports on top of the highest point for miles around struck us as a profoundly bad idea.

We continued through the nature reserve and were lucky enough to see some of the local Langur Monkeys (they have a reputation for weeing on people, so we kept our distance) and a vine snake which I nearly sat on. The rains held off long enough for us to safely get back to the Funicular station and get back down to the bottom of the hill, and we rounded off our time in Penang by again having Sushi from the restaurant downstairs

It really is good sushi!

Sling when you’re winning

Our final day in Cambodia was a laid back affair save for a quick trip around the market to stock up on some last minute souvenirs. It still felt as though we’d only just got here, and yet all too soon it was time to head to the airport for our flight to Singapore. Unfortunately, by the time we took off in the early evening a sizeable storm had rolled in, so the first half-hour of the flight was borderline terrifying as the plane shook and rattled in the heavy turbulence and lightning flashed through the cabin, which had been kept dark by the crew for an unnervingly long time. When at last the lights came on, the seatbelt sign was turned off and Katy had stopped swearing, she vowed never ever ever to get on an aircraft ever again (which should make for a very interesting series of blogs as we travel home by road across the Eurasian continent).

Fortunately, the rest of the flight was a relatively smooth affair and there was a palpable release of tension from the entire plane when we finally touched down at Changi International at the very eastern tip of the island city state. Going from Cambodia to Singapore meant that in the course of the evening we had travelled from South East Asia’s poorest country to its wealthiest. Per capita, the typical Singaporean is 45 times richer than the average Cambodian, and as such the taxi ride through the streets of the city from the airport to our Airbnb was like being driven across another planet. For one thing, the roads were about as 2D as it’s possible for roads to be!

We arrived at our Airbnb just north of the city centre and met Ken, our host for the weekend, as well as his 6 cats who were all very keen to explore the new smells and toys (our luggage tags) that had wandered into their home. It was now gone 11pm and we initially felt a little guilty that Ken had had to stay up so late to let us in, that was until we found out that he was still waiting on some more guests who had booked his other room. Our room was a spacious and luxurious 10^th floor apartment annexe featuring a private bathroom with a loo that can handle toilet paper (being 45x wealthier you’re your neighbours definitely has its perks), shared kitchen, British plugs and air conditioning. Oh, and they drive on the left here and understand the principles of forming queueing! We like Singapore!

The following morning, we awoke giddy and excited for what the day might bring and made our way into the city centre to collect our Grand Prix tickets. We had treated ourselves to ‘weekend premier walkabout’ tickets (read: premium economy), which gave us access to all 4 viewing zones around the circuit. We couldn’t enter the grandstands, but we could watch the action from any of the numerous make-shift terraces that lined the side of the track. Our plan for Friday then was to explore the circuit, trying out the different viewpoints to see which would be the best for the race on Sunday. We still had a few hours to kill between collecting our tickets and the gates to the circuit being open though, so we went off in search of a spot of lunch and to explore the city.

We wound up having a lunch of falafel-filled pita breads in a covered food-court near the central business district, before heading north towards the circuit through the maze of skyscrapers following the banks of the Singapore river and up to the historic Anderson Bridge. Here we crossed the river and excitedly made our way through the gates and the security checkpoints and into the circuit. Where we entered was at the far end from the pit straight in a section where the track loops around the grounds of the Singapore Cricket Club (Ah, the relics of Empire!). The pitch had been converted in to essentially a festival site for the weekend, complete with a stage flanked by big screens, shops and stalls, food vendors and bars, row upon row of portaloos and a marquee for dolling out complimentary (sic) spray-on tattoos which Katy insisted we get (eyeroll). At the time that we were exploring the circuit there was a Porsche Super Cup race happening, one of several support races taking place across the weekend in between the F1 sessions, so we had the opportunity to try out some of the viewpoints from which we might potentially watch the Grand Prix. Most were nothing special, lacking either a big screen or a decent view of the track so we continued on through the circuit towards the pit straight down by Marina Bay. All around us the sounds of the Porsches blasting through the city streets filled the air, their unmuted engine noises echoing off the surrounding skyscrapers and periodically drowning out the prattling of the Australian presenters over the PA system, who were busily hyping up the weekend to come (personally, I didn’t fully understand the need to sell me on an event that I’m already attending, but maybe I’m being too British about the whole thing. Leopards and spots etc…).

My favourite part of this hype building was the caveats they had to add to the ‘Night Race’ selling point of the weekend. When Singapore first hosted a Grand Prix in 2008, it was F1’s first and only Night Race and as such it made this USP front and centre of the marketing. In the subsequent 12 years though, the Bahrain and Abu Dhabi grand Prix’s have become ‘night’ and ‘day/night’ races respectively, meaning that now Singapore has to advertise itself as “F1’s only fully-at-night street-circuit race in Asia!”. Not quite as catchy.

We made our way to the pit straight and found an elevated viewing platform overlooking the last corner in the shadow of the Singapore Flyer, the huge Ferris wheel that’s taller even than the London Eye. From here we could see the back-end of the main straight, the pit entrance and several of the garages. There was also a big-screen on the opposite side of the track so we wouldn’t miss out on any of the action that was happening elsewhere. From there we watched the first practice session of the day, the first chance for us to see the F1 cars up close at full racing speed. The close-quarters of a street circuit make for a very different viewing experience from purpose-built circuits like Silverstone. The cars fly past mere milometers from the walls and only a matter of feet from the stands and the hemmed-in nature of the city streets contains the sound and makes it reverberate through the scaffolding that holds up the temporary stands. The sensation of watching and feeling the cars go past is truly visceral, and the immersion is dampened only by the heavy-duty catch fencing separating you from the track which has the annoying habit of drawing the camera’s focus every time you try to take a picture (It also, you know, protects you from being hit by debris from a 200mph shunt should the worst happen, so on balance Its probably best that its there).

Between 1^st and 2^nd Practice we had about two and a half hours to kill, so we headed across Marina Bay to Gardens by the Bay, perhaps Singapore’s most unique and iconic landmark. The complex is massive and covers much of the artificial peninsula which makes up the southern bank of the bay. It features numerous indoor and outdoor gardens including an Eden Project-like enclosed Cloud Forest, all centred around the ‘super-tree grove’, an amalgamation of towering metal trees up which are grown orchids, climbers and myriad other flowing plants. The aim of Gardens by the Bay is to serves as a demonstration space for pioneering far greater and more creative incorporation of green-space into urban planning and it can’t be denied that it makes an impressive and inspiring job of it.

You need the best part of a day (and a sizeable wad of cash) to visit the whole site, so as we only had a few hours we settled just for visiting the super tree grove. The grove is arranged with the largest tree closely encircled by six smaller ones from which a walkway is suspended about 2/3rds of the way up. The path follows a semi-circular route around the central tree and can be accessed for 8 SGD (about £5) each. The view from the path in the dwindling light was great, especially as the LED lights built into the trees came on and made the towering sprawl of the metal branches glow shades of green, pink and blue.

After 15 minutes or so on the path being gently ushered along by the attendants, we wound our way down and grabbed some snacks from the nearby food court before plonking ourselves on an open grassy area to watch the light display on the trees as the night descended. At 7:45 the light display began and the spotlights and LEDs around the super-trees began blinking and flashing a whole spectrum of colours to a medley of classic and contemporary music from all over Asia. For 15 minutes the display went on whilst we lay on the grass completely transfixed. It was totally mesmerising and thoroughly engrossing and exactly the sort of thing needed in a country where seemingly all psychedelic substance use carries the death penalty.

The light-show over we headed back across the bay to the circuit for second practice, this time finding a spot up near the first turn where the pit exit re-joins the racetrack. This was the first time we had seen the cars run at night under the glare of the massive network of spotlights suspended from overhead gantries. Seeing the cars under the glow of the artificial light was really cool and the spot we had chosen was a great place for photos as the cars moved slowly enough as they came out of the pits that the camera could keep up, but not so slowly that it focussed on the fence instead (most of the time). Once practice was over we headed back to our Airbnb, thoroughly pooped after a long day of walking, according to our pedometers, the best part of 15 miles around the city.

Fortunately for our sleepy minds and weary legs, the following day there was no activity on track of note until about 5pm where there was the final practice session before the evenings qualifying. In the meantime, we had a very leisurely lie-in before heading into town to engage in perhaps the most cliché touristy activity it’s possible to engage in whilst in Singapore; sipping a Singapore Sling at Raffles.

Dear reader; if you, like us, are not the type who was raised in a modern, dense, tightly packed super-city, then you might find navigating such a place a tad difficult. I normally have a pretty good sense of direction but soon found myself completely thrown by the warren of tunnels which double as shopping malls under the city and that connect the metro stations to all of the surrounding buildings. Eventually, after inadvertently stumbling in to the foyer of the building we had picked up our tickets from the day before, we found our way out above ground on a street which hadn’t been cordoned off as a result of the grand prix (who’s idea was it to host a grand prix here? Grumble grumble) and made our way out to Raffles Hotel.

Around the back of the building we headed up to the Long Bar and joined the queue of other punters who had had the same idea as Jackie Boyce. After about 15 minutes we were invited in by a very dapper barman and shown to our seats at a table flanked by two other couples also sporting F1 attire. In fact, nearly everybody in there was wearing a lanyard with a Grand Prix pass attached, so at least we didn’t look too out of place (aside from being a good 20 years younger than any of the other patrons).

We ordered our Singapore slings and tucked into the hessian bag filled with complimentary peanuts that each table is provided with. Part of the fun of the experience supposedly is to eat the peanuts and drop the shells on to the floor, all whilst being fanned from above by leaf-shaped bamboo paddles. Rich people are weird. The inside of the bar is, as you’d expect, very tasteful, sporting wide leather chairs, marble-topped tables with wooden trim, mahogany and stain-glass bay fittings and a white and black chequered marble floor partially obscured by peanut shells. The paddle fans wave gently at the top of the room, though this is just for ambience now and powered by an electric motor, the heavy lifting of the cooling instead provided by formidable A/C. There was a little wait for our slings, which were being produced 8 at a time by a dedicated mixologist with what must have been the world’s largest cocktail mixer. When they arrived, we were almost bowled over by how much alcohol was in them, they certainly hadn’t scrimped on the booze which, for £25 each, is the least you would expect (Thanks Jackie :D).

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The Singapore Sling was developed to look like a fruit juice so that ladies in the early 20’s could have an alcohol during a time when it was uncouth for them to be seen drinking. Seems to me though that the stated purpose of such a drink is completely defeated if just one contains so much booze that anyone can tell instantly from how you’re walking that you’re somewhat inebriated. After making the most of our slings we staggered out of the long bar back into the heat of the day and worked our way to the circuit, the mix of heat and alcohol giving us absolute clarity of purpose that what we needed next was ice-cream!

We again worked our way down to the Singapore flyer next to which stood a highly-recommended gelato bar with a mouth-watering range of options. I had Apple Crumble and Salted Caramel and Katy had Banoffee and Red Berry Pavlova. It was damn expensive, about £12 for both of us, but it was quite possibly the nicest ice cream we’d ever had and, in the heat and humidity of the late afternoon, worth every penny.

Next up was another practice session and we chose a spot near to where we were anywhere which had free seating for us non-grandstand plebs so we watched half the session from there before taking a ride on the Singapore Flyer, timing it just right so that we saw the last 15 minutes of the session from on board the giant Ferris wheel as well as the sunset as we went over the top. As the flyer is closed off to the general public and open only to grand-prix ticket holders it was practically deserted, and we ended up with a whole air conditioned capsule (designed for 20 people) all to ourselves. The ride takes about 30 minutes in all and offers gorgeous views of the city and of the racetrack, much of which can be seen from the top as it winds its way along the bay weaving between the buildings. The fading light, the glow the racetrack and the neon illumination of the skyscrapers of the CBD made for an absolutely stunning view which only got more beautiful as the wheel slowly turned and the night descended. Singapore really is a spectacular city and the vantage point our private cabin gave us really brought it home how lucky we are to have the opportunity we have had this year to see all the things we have seen and go to all the places we have been.

Once we left the Flyer, we had about an hour to kill before Qualifying started and, expecting the circuit to be quite busy, we made our way up to the same stand we had watched the second practice from the previous night from to claim our spot. The Qualifying hour proved to be one of the most exciting part of the weekend with 5 drivers in with a realistic shout of pole position and the climax of the session coming down to the wire. As it was, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took the top spot on the grid much to the approval of the massive Ferrari fan base in the crowds. The excitement over for the day we headed back home again eagerly anticipating the race the following day.

Sunday dawned and again we took our time getting up, hoping to conserve as much energy as we could for later to attend the after race show down at the cricket ground. A healthy late breakfast of Subway sandwiches and we were on our way, deciding this time to come into the track from the south to take advantage of the pleasant walk from the bayfront MRT along the banks of Marina Bay towards the bridge into the circuit.

Expecting a particularly busy day we had made plans to get to our chosen seating area with plenty of time to spare to ensure a good view, so we headed along the path following the back of the pit straight leading up to the first corner. Along the way we found ourselves in the midst of a large crowd of people hanging out by the entrance to the paddock where all the teams have their garages set up. It quickly became apparent why all these people were here; there was a steady stream of drivers, team big-wigs and other celebrities making their way from the large hotel complex just outside the circuit to the garages. We stood a little back from the crowd where we could get a good look at (and photo of) those approaching and over the course of about an hour saw around a third of the drivers, including Katy’s favourite Valtteri Bottas, as they made their way to the track. We’re not normally ones to get swept up in this kind of celebrity adulation but it was weirdly compelling to watch small groups approaching from the distant walkway and see if anyone we recognised was going to come past. It was a really fun thing to have stumbled across, especially as the crowd was by-and-large well behaved and most of the drivers were happy to take the time to sign a few autographs and snap a few selfies. Katy even managed to get a wink out of new Red Bull driver Alex Albon as he made his way past, I might have to have words with him.

Once we’d had our fill of being star-struck we continued up to the ‘Fan Village’ just to the north of the circuit where Katy got another spray on tattoo (eyeroll) and I refilled the water bottles in the free water dispenser located far away enough from the track that it was (almost) not worth the effort and settling for the over-priced bottles available from numerous vendors in much more convenient locations. After that, and with about 3 hours to go until the start of the race we made our way to the viewing platform, sticking with our chosen spot from the previous day on the inside of turn 2. There were still support races taking place, so we had that to entertain us whilst we waited, as well as interviews and race discussion being broadcast over the PA system. All of a sudden, the banality of passing the time until the race started was dramatically interrupted by a car spinning off and slamming into the wall just 20 feet down the track from where we were sat. Despite the deafening crunch of the impact against the concrete barrier the driver was fine and climbed out of his wreck with a wave and to a round of applause from the crowd. It’s been less than a month since Antoine Hubert tragically lost his life in a Formula 2 race in Belgium, itself a support race to the F1 race that weekend, so seeing a driver walk away unscathed from an accident, even a relatively minor one like this one, is a great relief to everyone.

As the marshals cleared away the damaged car and repaired the barrier, the big screen opposite continued the running 3 day hype-train by talking about upcoming acts on the various stages around the circuit and encouraging the fans to share their pictures on social media, when suddenly the picture I took of Alex Albon winking at Katy and that she had posted on Instagram appeared. This was all getting out of hand now, definitely time to have words!

It was a good job we did get to the viewpoint when we did though, as bout half an hour later and with still a couple of hours to go before the start of the race it was pretty much full up. Next up was the drivers parade where the drivers are driven around in open-top cars to wave at the crowd like a procession of former US presidents. This used to be a slightly less glamorous affair, with all the drivers packed on to the back of a low-loader and driven slowly around the circuit together. Jenson Button once said this was his and many other drivers’ favourite part of the weekend, it being the only time the drivers were together in one place without the media or team handlers monitoring every word they said. In fact, the drivers enjoyed the opportunity for a chat amongst themselves so much that they invariably forgot to wave at the crowd, so Formula One Management (understandably valuing public engagement more than the driver’s social lives) had to separate them all like naughty school children.

I would’ve loved to have included more pictures from the drivers parade but unfortunately for the duration of the parade our camera developed a particularly keen fascination with the fence, so we now have a lot of nicely framed and well balanced shots of metal fences with blurry men in cars in the background. Brilliant.

With the driver’s parade having passed us I set off to get us some sandwiches and some beers for the race from the 7/11 located inside the grounds of the Singapore Flyer. Being the cheap-skates we are, we had clocked the previous day that the 7/11 was there and was selling beers for about a third of the price of the bars around the circuit. Presumably some lawyer somewhere was unsuccessful in their exclusivity negotiation and now the organisers were stuck trying very hard not to drawer any attention to the fully stocked convenience store inside the circuit grounds.

We now had only an hour to go until the race start and the buzz was really building in the now completely packed stands. Soon enough, to cheers and applause, the cars started making their way out of the pits to head to the grid ready for the start of the race. The national anthem played, the silly overdramatic intro music sounded, the commentators did their run down of the drivers and teams, the cars came around on the formation lap and the lined up for the start and then, at 8:10 in the evening, finally, it was lights out!

All 20 cars blasted past us making their way through the first sequence of corners, the sound like a vast swarm of angry miss-firing hornets fading into the distance in the city before slowly building up again as the field came around for a second lap. There was a long night ahead of us, 61 laps in all, each lasting around 1 minute and 50 seconds. For the drivers, this is the most physically demanding race of the years, the tight twisty circuit requiring maximum focus and the high humidity draining their strength. Throughout the course of the race they can expect to lose around 3kg of fluids in sweat alone. My 10 year old self might think differently but; rather them than me! Singapore is not generally the most exciting of race of the year, the circuit not lending itself to overtaking or close racing, though it can have its moments. Watching the race live however is a different thing; the lights, the sound, the smell and the atmosphere in the stands all make It so that even an otherwise dull race can be thoroughly engrossing.

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What really strikes you about watching a race live rather than on TV is the lingering consequences of the things that happen. If a driver locks up a tyre going into a corner, they carry on and the TV coverage follows them, but the cloud of smoke hangs in the air for ages afterwards slowly wafting the stench of burned rubber into the crowd. The same goes for the sparks and smoke thrown up by the underside of the car as they bottom out at high speed, or if a piece of bodywork comes off; provided it isn’t on the racing line, it will just be left there until it’s safe for a marshal to retrieve it. Another thing that the TV doesn’t do justice to at all is the sound; not just the outright volume, but the texture and richness of it. It’s only when you are here that you realise how heavily the broadcast sound is compressed and is lacking the dynamic range that comes from occasional misfires, the whirring of the turbo and the surprisingly loud and guttural fluttering sound a car makes as it goes across the kerbs.

The most dramatic moment from our vantage point came towards the end of the race as Daniil Kvyat attempted to make a late pass on Kim Räikkönen coming in to the first corner. The two banged wheels and went wide across the entrance of turn 2 right in front of us, breaking Kimi’s suspension and forcing him to retire the car right there on track. There was a slightly surreal moment of disconnect as both Katy and I were watching the big-screen at the time, we saw the collision happen and then a split second later made the connection that what we were watching on screen was actually happening right in front of us. Kimi climbed out of his stricken car and ran across the circuit towards us, much to the approval of the crowd around us and after a brief safety car period to move the wreck, the race was underway again.

Before we knew it though the race was over, with Sebastian Vettel winning for Ferrari (boooooo) to a thunderous cacophony of fireworks and music. After the race had concluded the track was opened up for the crowd to walk along, kind of the equivalent of an authorised pitch invasion. It’s a nice opportunity for the fans to get down on to the track and up-close to the pit garages, and it also served as a way to aid the tens of thousands of people (the overall race day attendance was about 260,000) making their way from the stands around the circuit to the main stage where the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were playing the final musical set of the weekend. Pumped full of adrenaline and alcohol we set off on this journey around the track, taking the opportunity to have a sneak peak at the garage and high-fiving the enthusiastic ushers and marshals who were guiding us along, cheering, signing and generally just having a really great time.

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By the time we had made the 2 mile walk down the track to the main arena though the alcohol and adrenaline had worn off, the humidity had got to us and the weariness of a very long and action-packed weekend had taken over us, so we made a token show of seeing the Red Hot Chilli Pepers then made our way out of the arena and back to our Airbnb.

The race may not have been a classic, but it was a wonderful experience being there, and it was a real pleasure visiting this stunning city-state. The organisation and execution of the whole weekend was superb, and you can’t help but admire the logistical finesse involved in pulling off an event of this scale in the heart of such a busy city. Singapore gets a big 10/10 from us and it’s a place we would love to visit again someday in the future.

Kep calm and Carry On

After saying our goodbyes to The Flicks, our fellow volunteers and, of course, the cats, we made our way north across Phnom Penh to the central post office to get the bus to Kep. Despite being a tourist hot-spot, kep is best served not by any of the local bus companies or tour operators, but rather by the fleet of minivans operated by the Cambodian post office.

Our tuk-tuk dropped us off outside the central post office; a tall French art-deco style mansion with yellow walls and white trim windows and balcony. We weren’t totally sure where to go at this point, but luckily there was a small gaggle of white people sat on the steps outside with luggage in hand, so we went and stood near them. It’s a sad reflection on the realities of travelling that you instinctively develop a race-based herding mentality, but it does generally get you where you want to go. As we sat down, we were enthusiastically greeted by a fellow traveller with a strong American accent who asked us where in the UK we were from. We have learned from past experience that to anyone who isn’t British the answer ‘Bath’ will drawer blank stares, so generally we will say ‘near Bristol’ or just ‘the south’ if that doesn’t ring any bells.

‘Near Bristol’ we said, to which she quickly responded, ‘oh yes, where abouts?’. Turns out that not only had she heard of Bath, but she was in fact English, having been born and raised in Kent but having moved to the US as a child. She was lovely, and it was all well and good, but her claim to be English was undermined somewhat by the fact that she had failed to pick up on the ‘It’s 6:30am and we don’t want to engage anybody in conversation’ expressions that we had been wearing since dragging ourselves up at 5:30am.

Soon enough we were loaded on to the van and I had the luxury of my knees being wedged in against the metal frame of the seat in front for our 5 hour journey down to Kep. I was a little surprised when the journey said it was 5 hours, Kep is only a little over half as far away from Phnom Penh as Sen Monorom and on the map the road is flat and straight all of the way. Maybe because it’s a postal van it makes loads of stops? Who knows.

Well we found out soon enough; the road (which goes via the port town of Kampot and hence is heavily used by lorries and trucks) is mostly a pot-hole ridden dirt road, rarely permitting speeds above 30mph. For 4 hours then we bumped and bounced and rattled and rolled all the way to Kampot where the bus offloaded most of the passengers including our pond-straddling friend, and we then continued on our way for a further half an hour, arriving in Kep a little ahead of schedule at about midday. The road from Kampot to Kep was fortunately somewhat better that the one from Phnom Penh, and once we actually entered Kep we found ourselves on a beautifully smooth two lane dual carriageway which was completely deserted. It says something about Cambodia’s infrastructure priorities that a small seasonal seaside town has far better roads that the route connecting the countries capital city to one of its major ports. I don’t know what that something is, but it definitely says something.

Whilst we were making our way down to Kep, Katy got a message through from her Cambodian phone provider that our credit had expired, and we now had no data available. This despite supposedly having money in our account until the 6^th of September. Grumble grumble. Anyway, this left us in the rather awkward position of being left at a seemingly deserted post office in the pouring rain with no internet and no phone and no way to access the contact information for our hotel which we would need to show to a Tuk Tuk driver to get us there. Not that they were available, we seemed to have been dropped on the only street in all of Cambodia not teeming with Tuk Tuks…

So, there was nothing else for it. Once the rain had eased from torrential to merely heavy, Katy very kindly volunteered to take one for the team and look after the bags under the awning of the post office whilst I ventured off to look for a shop selling mobile credit. Once we had successfully topped up the phone we ventured down towards the seafront where there was a small café to grab some lunch and watch the islands over the bay disappear and reappear again from behind the rainclouds. Afterwards we popped across the road to negotiate a Tuk Tuk to take us to our hotel. After spending a month sharing a flat and sleeping in a hard bed with only a fan to keep us cool, we decided to push the boat out and treat ourselves to somewhere a little special. With it being the off season, most of the local hotels were offering their rooms at very discounted rates, so we were able to book ourselves a room at Villa Kep Resort where we had an absolutely gorgeous lakeside villa in a secluded jungle setting, complete with onsite restaurant, bar, pool and spa.

We found out very quickly why we got the room so cheap though, the rain continued unrelenting for another 36 hours and not letting up until the morning of our second full day at the resort. No matter though, we had a lovely time relaxing on the patio outside our villa watching the rain, reading and trying out some of the cocktails that the flamboyant Finish owner Juha treated us to by way of apology for the internet being a bit dodgy.

As the weather broke (i.e. it rained intermittently rather than constantly) on the second day we thought it best we take the opportunity to get out and do something, opting for a tour of the nearby ‘La Plantation’ a Belgian-owned organic farm that grows Kampot Pepper and also works as a community development project supporting local schools and providing training opportunities. The farm is located about a half-hour’s drive north of our hotel along a series of what our driver described as ‘3D roads’ which circumnavigated a large artificial lake constructed by the Khmer Rouge. Just one of the numerous failed water management projects that still litter the country. Upon arrival we took a short walk to a large wooden stilted building from where we were taken on a tour around the farm to see the pepper plantations. As well as pepper, other crops grown on site including pineapple, lemon grass and dragon fruit. Afterwards we returned to the wooden building where we had an opportunity to try a range of the peppers grown at the farm, ranging from mild salty blends to full on face-melting spicy varieties. Unbeknownst to us, the varieties of pepper you typically find for sale -black, red, green and white- are all from the same plant, the colour and flavour are determined by when the pepper is picked and how it is processed.

After we sampled the peppers we relaxed with a coffee and watched the rainclouds as they rolled over the landscape. The view from the stilted building was fantastic; right out in the countryside with farmlands and the occasional wooden hut in the foreground and jungle covered mountains lining the lake in the distance. Once we had suitably cleared our pallets from all the pepper we’d eaten, we went to grab some lunch at the on-site restaurant (which involved plenty more pepper). We headed back to our hotel shortly after and continued the arduous task of not doing very much at all for the rest of the day.

Another day of heavy rain the following day meant that the rest of our time in Kep was rather uneventful and so we headed on back to Phnom Penh very refreshed but itching to get out and see more sights at our next main stop in Battambang. For the return bus journey, we opted to travel by coach; more expensive and more time consuming than the postal van, but we hoped a larger vehicle would provide a smoother ride over the ‘3-D’ road and they did a pickup directly from our hotel. Whilst it was indeed the case that the larger vehicle provided a smoother ride,the added comfort was more than ff-set by the exceptionally annoying ageing hippie who sat on the seats next to us and bent my ear all the way to Phnom Penh about how were all slaves of the global financial elite, how we’re being dumbed down by fluoride in the water, how the Jews run Hollywood to serve their agenda, how JFK was assassinated by the illuminati and how people in LA are all phonies. It was absolute hell; like sitting next to an un-mutable tape-recording of me from 10 years ago. By the end of the journey I was closer to buying a packet of cigarettes that I have been at any point in the last 5 years. Katy helped by sticking her headphones in and laughing at me.

Once the ordeal was over, we made our way to our hostel for the night before swinging by The Flicks again to check in on our former colleagues and catch up on the latest gossip. We set off home in time to watch the qualifying and to get an early night ready for our bus to Battambang the following morning.

Dear reader, it seems to me that during the course of a 9 month globetrotting adventure, the laws of probability determine that, at some point, we would have a pleasant experience whilst travelling by bus. Well, the day we travelled to Battambang was not that day, we were wedged, along with another pair of travellers, on to the back row of a ‘VIP limousine’ (minibus) with lacklustre air-conditioning and barely any room to move for all of 6 hours, our only rest bite being a 20 minute stop halfway through where we could unfold ourselves from seats and check ourselves for blood clots. Suddenly the awful American nutjob didn’t seem quite so awful. Finally arriving in Battambang and falling out of the back of the bus was one of the most pleasant experiences of our lives, especially as the bus stopped within easy walking distance of our hostel and soon enough, we were able to spread ourselves across a large bed in an air conditioned room.

For the next few nights we would be staying at ‘Here be Dragons Hostel’. Sadly, there are no actual dragons, just a very cheap and pleasant hostel run by about 40 or 50 French people. After a pleasant meal in the attached restaurant where we made plans for the coming days we settled down to watch the grand prix. The next day we hired one of the local tuk-tuk to drivers called ‘DJ’ to go on a little tour first to the Bamboo Train, a well-known local tourist trap, and then on to the wonderfully named Bat Cave Mountain.

The Bamboo train or ‘norri’ is a local-run tourist attraction that follows a short section of the railway line just south of the city. Each train consists of a large bamboo platform that sits atop of a pair of railway bogeys and is powered by a motorbike engine fitted to the back and operated with a short pole. The practice started in the 80’s, locals fashioning the little trains to run along the disused railway line to get from the villages to the city. When two trains meet face to face, one of the trains is simply dismantled and reassembled once the other has passed. Today the line has been restored as part of China’s grand railway vision for South East Asia, but it is used infrequently by actual trains, so the bamboo trains still run as means of extracting money from silly westerners.

We paid our $10 and hoped aboard the bamboo platform which sits about a foot above the tracks and were soon on our way, hurtling along through the Cambodia countryside at up to 35mph. The ride is juddery and noisy and the feeling of being completely exposed on what is essentially a giant motorised tea-tray is a little alarming at first, but the experience is totally unique, a great laugh and wonderfully Cambodian. We rode along for about 20 minutes before arriving at a small village straddling the railway line where we quickly and politely ushered into a shopping opportunity by a young local woman. Whilst our train was disassembled and turned around for the return trip, we enjoyed a beer and some fruit kindly provided by one of the other locals before both being talked in to buying some silly shirts and being tagged with complimentary ‘I’m a gullible tourist’ bracelets. The return trip was largely the same, although this time our ‘driver’ put his foot down to escape the rain clouds chasing us up the track, and we arrived back at the station and dove in to the tuk tuk just in time to avoid the rain.

DJ then took us off to our next stop at Phnom Sampeau, a pair of mountains that are home to ‘the killing cave’ and ‘the bat cave’ from which the tourist name is derived. DJ parked up just by the sheer cliff of the taller northern mountain, next to where an 80 foot statue of the buddha is currently being carved out. From there he led us on foot up the steady concrete roadway which split at the base of the short ridge between the two peaks. We followed the left hand path heading out on to the southern face of the mountain where we entered the Killing cave, yet another of the myriad mass graves that blight Cambodia. The cave was used by the Khmer Rouge to dump bodies through a small natural skylight and in total between 7 and 10 thousand people met their end here. The cave now has steps allowing access to a small shrine at the bottom, and outside a temple and numerous monuments to the deceased have been erected. From outside the cave there is a fantastic view of the surrounding landscape, a pan-cake flat patchwork of paddy fields and palm trees punctured with a smattering of limestone mountains.

We then headed across the ridge to the large pagoda on the summit of the northern peak where DJ took us to several great secluded vantage points for overlooking the nearby scenery. Some of these views were spectacular and we would probably have hung around savouring them for longer had the local monkey troops not shown such a keen interest in relieving us of our belongings. Cheeky buggers.

The main attraction was still yet to come though, so we descended the stairs along the eastern face of the mountain and came out nearby to the tuk tuk again. DJ pointed us in the direction of a good bar and said he’d pick us up in about hour or so, so off we went to the roof of ‘the bat pub’ and made ourselves comfortable.

About 45 minutes later from a large opening on the side of the mountain, a swarm of bats came flooding out of the cave. For more than half an hour, thousands upon thousands of Asian Wrinkle Lipped bats poured out every minute forming a meandering snake across the sky as they headed out for the evenings hunt. The sight was absolutely breath-taking and like nothing we’d ever seen before. The sheer number of bats and how they moved together as a winding column across the sky was truly surreal, at a distance their mass was like a single organism, the bats weaving and reacting to each other almost as one. We could have watched it all night, but the light was fading, and it was getting harder and harder to see the emerging bats, so we descended back down the stairs and met up again with DJ to head on back into town.

The following day we booked ourselves on to a walking tour around the city. This was something of a novelty in SEA where walking tours (for understandable weather related reasons) haven’t really taken off, but as is well known to all those who read this blog we love a walking tour, so the opportunity to partake in one for the first time in months was too good to pass up. The tour didn’t start until 4pm though (for understandable weather related reasons), so we largely mooched about on the terrace reading before being picked up by our guide Saruon.

The tour started with a walk to the statue of Lok Ta Dambong Khra Nhuong (try saying that 5 times after you’ve had a few) whilst Saruon gave us a little history lesson about Battambang (pronounced ‘Bat-dum-bong’). The city straddles the Sangkae river which flows into Ton Le Sap, the huge lake the dominates the heart of the country. The city was established during the Khmer Empire in the 11^th century as a trading post, sitting as it does slap-bang in the centre of the countries’ most productive rice-growing region. The old town on the western bank of the Sagkea traces much of its modern history back to the French colonial period, and the city today has wide boulevards and row upon row of tall, two story terraced buildings complete with balconies, bay windows and large awnings overhanging the pavement below. The new town on the eastern bank on the other hand was almost exclusively built in the second half of the 20^th Century after Cambodia’s independence, giving the city something of a dual personality. The city was less affected by the Khmer Rouge than much of the rest of country. Save for being forcibly evacuated, the city was left mostly untouched. Battambang remained off-limits to tourists until the late 90’s however as the remnants of the Khmer Rouge continued to fight UN forces and the fledgling Kingdom of Cambodia army, even managing to take the city for a short time in 1996.

Soon enough we had arrived at Lok Ta Dambong Khra Nhuong, a large jet-black statue of a man sat in an up-right lotus position holding an urn atop which is balanced a large stick. Around the base were sellers offering flowers and other more unsettling trinkets (including a whole roasted pig) that could be offered in prayer to this local idol. The statue is of the mythical king Khra Nhuong who supposedly lost his very important stick in the area and hence gave the city the name of Battambang which literally translates as “lost his stick”.

We love Cambodia.

We then moved on to cross the river into the old town where we were approached by a monk who spoke briefly to Saruon before asking us if we would be willing to volunteer an hour or so to help trainee monks with their English at the nearby university. The setup fell a little like a scam at first, but it sounded intriguing and we gave the monk the benefit of the doubt (he was a monk after all, and he did have a very official looking lanyard!). We were very glad we went along with it though, it turned out to be a really wonderful experience! We walked across town with Saruon to the Monk’s University on the grounds of Damray Sor Pagoda. Here we were introduced to 3 apprentice monks and a young female student of the university who walked us around the pagoda taking it in turns to be our tour guide, talking us through the statues and murals that decorate the pagoda including the interior which is not usually open to the public. After we had finished, we were asked to score the students who had guided us and to give feedback to the group and to their teacher, the Monk who had originally approached us in the street. For our time, the monks presented us with a gift of a traditional Khmer scarf and a couple of books each. It was a really wonderful and rewarding experience and it was nice to do something beyond the usual tourist activities that really engaged with the local community. After we had finished, we continued with our now somewhat delayed tour with Saruon taking us up through the old town to the central market where we had the opportunity to try some local food before finally retiring to a small bar for a well earned drink and some food.

And that about wrapped up our time in Battambang, a town which left a really positive impression on us during our time there. The following day we had a lazy day save for getting involved with the quiz night the hostel was running (2^nd place by 2 points, curse you double landlocked Lichtenstein!!!!). Next up we head northeast to Siem Reap to visit Angkor. I suspect that might be a long blog too!

Relative Winter is Coming

We said our sad goodbyes to Hoi An and climbed in to the Taxi back north to Da Nang to catch our flight to Nha Trang. We were scheduled to depart at 6:10pm and I for one was rather excited at the prospect of flying along the Vietnamese coast at sunset, especially once we had checked in and I had been allocated a window seat. Sadly, it wasn’t to be though as a late arrival meant we were delayed for about an hour. Ah well. We arrived in to Nha Trang and set off for our hotel, a large and spacious if slightly dated 2^nd story room with a huge balcony overlooking a busy street corner. It was now about 10pm so after a quick fashion shoot with our newly tailored wardrobe we called it a night.

There isn’t really much to do in Nha Trang; the city has a pretty decent beach and a massively overpriced theme park… and that’s about it. It’ only real feature of note is that it’s crawling with Russian holiday makers and expats, so much so in fact that Russian, rather than English, is the second language here. The popularity of Nha Trang with the Russians is a hangover from a period between 1975 and 2002 when the nearby natural harbour of Cam Ranh was leased to the USSR and later to Russia as a Naval base.

We didn’t really take to Nha Trang, it’s little more than a watered down version of Da Nang, albeit watered down with Vodka. Given the number of high-rise hotels and apartment complexes being constructed though, it will likely soon be giving Da Nang a run for its money. If you’re a fan of days on the beach and nights in the club all whilst ‘vanity-‘graming’ every 5minutes and doing everything you can to avoid interacting with the local culture, then Nha Trang is the city for you! That’s not really us though, so for much of the next two days we enjoyed the balcony and the cool sea breeze that swept across it whilst we gave our surplus a chance to heal itself.

Onwards then to Da Lat, a town which we already knew was going to being launching a full frontal assault on our finances. We set off from Nha Trang for the 4 hour drive to Da Lat in the back of a minivan whose suspension had been removed and replaced with cinder blocks and whose driver had clearly learned been trained by the Peruvians (that or his brain had also been removed and replaced with a cinder block). How we’ve managed to survive all of this insane driving so far this year is beyond me, but it has had the unintended side effect of helping Katy get over her fear of flying. She’s positively zen now when strapped into an aircraft seat rather than in a bus and holding on to the back of the seat in front whilst being thrown through another blind overtake.

Although shaken by our drive through the mountains we arrived at Da Lat and were instantly bowled over by the refreshingly cool air temperature. Da Lat lies at an altitude of just over 1500m, deep inside the mountains of the central highlands and at this time of year typically has temperatures in the high teens to mid-twenties. After 2 months of not stop 30+ degree heat, this was absolute heaven! Being cold has never felt so novel. A short taxi ride brought us to Tree House hostel, run by an English guy named Simon and his Vietnamese wife Hannah, which would be our home for the next 4 nights. That evening we enjoyed a ‘family dinner ‘which the hostel puts on on alternative nights for a small extra fee. The word ‘family’ is used slightly loosely here in so far as Hannah stays in the kitchen wither sister and cooks dish after dish of stunning Vietnamese cuisine, whilst Simon sits at the dining table with the guests getting steadily more drunk. It’s good to see that he has acclimatised so well to gender norms in his adopted country.

Over dinner we got chatting to fellow guests Esther and Richard from London who, like us, were a little older than the run-of-the-mill backpacker here and so shared our curmudgeonly disdain for loud, vacuous party-loving youths. People after our own heart. Before we knew it three hours had passed as food kept coming and beer and rice wine kept flowing until eventually Esther, Richard and ourselves felt the pull of our beds. The family dinner was such a nice change of pace from the usual hostel experience; travelling in the internet age means that striking up a conversation with other hotel or hostel guests is a rare thing and so it can sometimes be a quite insular experience. We’d almost forgotten how nice it can be to actually talk to other people.

We set off early the next morning to explore Da Lat following a self-guided walking tour that Katy had found online. The city was built by the French as a mountain retreat in the late 19^thcentury and grew quickly over the following half century as the French began producing wine and coffee on the slopes of the surrounding mountains. The city survived the war largely unscathed and today is the most popular domestic tourist destination for the Vietnamese. The city’s French origins are still readily visible; the wide boulevards are lined with trees; the hotels have that classic Parisian feel with neo-classical recessed columns and balconies and everywhere there are small parks and gardens, churches and bistro cafes. The city is centred around a large artificial lake which is circumnavigated by a wide, pine tree lined road. With the mountains in the background and the cool greens of the foliage, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in a small French or Swiss town somewhere in the Prealps.

The first stop on our little jaunt was Hang Nga Guesthouse, known informally as ‘the crazy house’. The guesthouse is an ever-expanding and highly unconventional freeform building designed by Vietnamese architect Dang Viet Nga. She started the construction in 1990 and has been expanding it ever since despite the efforts of the local authorities to shut her down (that was, until they realised that it was a draw for tourists and there was money to be made). Even today whole new sections are being added. Although started as a guesthouse, the site attracts so much attention that during the day the grounds are open for the public to explore for a small fee. The guesthouse features four main buildings; one themed on an anthill, one a greatly exaggerated mediaeval town-house, one as a coral reef and one that defies all explanation. All four buildings are intertwined by concrete pathways and ladders, each decorated to look like vines or rock formations or other more abstract organic forms. The site is a real warren and its location on a hill on the outskirts of the city means that from the top (if you could fine your way there) you can get some great vistas over Da Lat. We spent a good hour and a half climbing around through caverns and seashells, over rooves and across pathways having a great time getting completely disorientated. The attention to detail here is impressive and it would be a brilliant place to dump kids for a few hours and let them annoy someone else for a change.

Once we had had our fill we stopped in the small café attached to the crazy house and enjoyed the fact that, for the first time in months, we were out and about in Asia and not sweating our own bodyweight in water every 20 minutes. We slurped down a banana smoothie each and carried on our adventure, passing a church which famously has a chicken on the roof (ok) before heading down to a large, elevated park overlooking the lake which is home to a pair of imposing glass and metal structures; one shaped like an artichoke and another representing the head of a sunflower. Along with Wine and Coffee, Da Lat is also renowned for its flower production and the sunflower head is a celebration of that. The countryside around the city is dominated by polythene greenhouses which produce all manner of cut flowers, many of which are used liberally to decorate the public parks and gardens in the city. Because of its flower trade, Da Lat is a popular palace for young couples to come to take their wedding photos which, in local custom, are taken before the wedding. Evidently the Vietnamese have no equivalent concept to ‘jinxing’.

We carried on past the lake and up a steady hill to the train station. Da Lat is no longer on the main railway line, the tracks that used to connect it to Phan Rang were taken up after the war and used to construct the reunification line further north. The only remaining tracks are a short section leading from the station to a pagoda about 5km southeast of the city and to which a small tourist train runs twice daily. We had been told by fellow travellers at Tree House Hostel that it was a bit of a waste of time though, as the train is overcrowded with throngs of Chinese tour groups madly trying to take photos of themselves in front of every window, and that the pagoda is a bit of a tourist trap. We opted instead just to enjoy the grounds of the station; a 1930’s French Art Deco style building which has been lovingly maintained by local volunteers.

On our way back into town we stopped off for a light lunch in a café that makes home-made ice cream where Katy found she had a taste for durian, and I questioned why I agreed to marry her. After that we walked around the rest of the lake swearing at the local drivers who have a penchant for fitting customised horns to their vehicles that sound like shotguns being fired through church organs. We walked to Da Lat’s famous flower garden. And then past Da Lats famous flower garden. Because it’s a flower garden, and headed back home. Having walked about 12 miles in all around the city we felt we had burned enough calories to have a burger for dinner, so that’s what we did.

The following morning, we had booked ourselves on to a day-long guided sightseeing tour recommended by Simon & Hannah. About 9am our guide arrived, and we piled in to the 4×4 joining a pair of Dutch guys and a young Canadian called Adelle who had already been picked up from another hostel. We set off and quickly got chatting amongst ourselves as we made our way out of the city towards our first stop up by a small dam just to the south of city. Here our tour guide Cong told us about Ho Tuyen lake, the reservoir held back by dam which provides flood protection to Da Lat, as well as talking us through the itinerary for the day. Cong was informative, friendly and witty with an extremely dry and sarcastic sense of humour. He spoke great English and quickly built a rapport with us by mocking our accents and swearing at other Vietnamese drivers using rather choice words that Grandma would most certainly not approve of. Cong was also very open to talking about Vietnams society and politics, spilling all sorts of dark secrets about corruption and exploitation and the shortcomings of essential services. This was my favourite part of the tour and I really appreciated Congs willingness to tackle difficult subjects and answer probing questions. There are days, when travelling, when you say to yourself that no matter what problems your home country faces, things could be a lot worse. This was one of those days.

If all we’d done was drive around the Vietnamese countryside talking about corrupt institutions, the legacy of the War, social divisions and people’s attitude to propaganda, then this day would have been good value for money. It wasn’t though, and Cong had loads of stops for us to enjoy including a couple of waterfalls, a coffee plantation where we got to sample coffee farmed by weasels (if you’re now thinking about that story you vaguely remember about coffee made from weasel poop, yes, that’s the one), a mushroom farm, a massive statue of a female buddha (paid for with misappropriated funds according to Cong), a secluded golf resort for the Vietnamese elite, a cricket farm where we got to try freshly made rice wine and deep fried crickets (yum) and finally a flower plantation.

It was a packed and absolutely fascinating day and to cap it all off there was another family dinner back at the hostel that evening. We had intended to get a fairly early night as we had plans for the following morning but after 4 beers and too much rice wine, we found ourselves mixing it with the best of them over a game of cards against humanity. Best laid plans and all…

Considerably later than planned the following morning we set off to Da Lat cable car station for the short ride through the pine trees to Tuc Lam Phung Hoang Zen Monastery. We weren’t here for enlightenment just yet though; we had another agenda! About a 15 minute walk from the cable car station is Datanla Waterfalls which can either be accessed by a steep mountain path, or via an alpine bobsled roller coaster. No prizes for guessing which option we took!

An alpine coaster is a little different to a traditional roller coaster. Instead of a large train which seats 20-30 people each car is small and seats 1 or 2 people and is fitted with a manual brake for speed control. The geography also means that you start at the top rather than at the bottom, only going up the chain lift on the return trip to the station. Katy and I engaged in our greatest national pursuit and dutifully joined the queue whilst scowling at anyone who even looked like they were thinking of jumping the line. A short wait later it was our turn to board and Katy lead the way as we took separate cars. The trains quickly pick up speed coming out of the station and soon we were whizzing through the trees and flying through banked corners as fast as we dared. The ride was surprisingly smooth and really good fun and was the perfect cure for our hangovers. Sadly, it was all over too quickly and after being winched up a short hill we were made to depart at the second station and were presented an opportunity to buy some on ride photos. ‘Well it’s not like we’re ever going to be here again’ is a phrase we see to be saying with worrying frequency as we open our wallets at the moment.

At the bottom is a vantage point for Datanla waterfalls, which are perfectly pleasant, though not as impressive as the waterfalls we had seen the previous day and was absolutely swarming with those in pursuit of nirvana through the medium of the perfect selfie. We got back on the roller coaster for the shorter second section which mainly consisted of chain lifts taking us to the top of the hill. We walked back and I took a brief look around the Zen Monastery whilst Katy tried to shake off the lingering effects of her hangover and then we headed back on to the cable car and returned to the city. Our next stop was the market which we had hoped would yield some interesting wares but proved to be a bit repetitive and something of an anti-climax to our time in Da Lat, a city which had proven to be a real favourite of our time in Asia.

Luckily that evening there was no family dinner taking place, which was good, because the following morning we had to get up at 5am to catch a flight to Sai Gon and if there had been a family dinner, we certainly wouldn’t have packed and probably would have overslept.

But more on that next time.

“What is a surplus for if not for spending on stupid trains?”

Our train was scheduled for 10:30 in the evening, so we spent a rather leisurely final day in Tam Coc lounging around the guesthouse and strolling into town for lunch and dinner. Our host had very kindly let us stay in the room with its precious, precious air conditioning until about 6pm as her next guests weren’t arriving until late. All of which meant that by the time we arrived at Ninh Binh station we were feeling very relaxed and ready for our next adventure, an 11-hour night train to Hue, the historic capital of Vietnam.

The train arrived and we made our way to our cabin, a private room which was, for all intent and purpose, the first-class experience. Our cabin welcomed us with a waft of AC, complimentary water, coffee, tea, bananas and 2 soft beds either side of a Formica-like table fixed beneath a large window. We settled into our beds and the train set off, gently rocking side to side as we trundled along through the dead of night. The next morning, we awoke early to the sun piercing through the curtains of our cabin and with still about 3 hours to go until we reached Hue and having slept about as well as it’s possible to sleep on public transport. Katy and I both felt refreshed and pulled back the curtain to take in the scenery as the train chugged merrily along through paddy fields, over rivers and past lush green mountains. Vietnam really is a stunning country.

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About an hour later than scheduled we arrived in Hue and checked in to our hotel where we were enthusiastically greeted by Tinh, the hotel manager, who gave us complimentary drinks and talked us through all of the top sights Hue has to offer. The city is home to about half a million people and lies at the narrowest part of Vietnam, with only 50 miles or so separating the coast and the Laos border and more or less equidistant between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The city is just to the north of a spur of the Annamese mountain range that juts across to the sea that is generally considered the dividing line between North and South Vietnam. Indeed, the DMZ established during the ill-fated attempt to peacefully reunify the country after the first Indochina war was only a few kilometres north of Hue. The modern city is split in to 2 halves by the charmingly named Perfume River, with the citadel and the old quarter on the northern bank and the urban sprawl of the modern city on the southern.

The only thing missing from our first-class train experience was breakfast and it was now gone midday, so we headed out for some much-needed lunch at the highly recommended Nina’s Café about 5 minutes’ walk from the hotel.

It was closed.

Moving on then we went instead to the neighbouring, and cleverly named ‘Café on Thu Wheels’ (the owners name is Thu, pronounced ‘two’). Shortly after taking a seat, a super-smiley older lady came over to take our order and ask us where we were from. This is a common question in Vietnam, and you have to be a little careful answering it; sometimes people are just making conversation, and that’s lovely so you don’t want to be rude and not respond, but sometimes it is a prelude to attempting to sell you knockoff sunglasses, or fruit, or wind-up Spiderman action figures, or drugs. In this case we were pretty confident that the super-smiley older was just making conversation, so we happily responded that we were from England, to which she responded ‘Ooh, Lovely Jubely, Diamond Geezer, Booyakasha’.

I love this country.

It turned out though that this was a prelude to a sales pitch as once we’d finished our meals Thu came over to strike up a conversation with us.

‘So you guys are from England?’

‘Yes, that’s right’

‘ooh, Lovely Jubely, Diamond Geezer… So, is this your first time to Hue?’

‘Yes, this is our first time in Vietnam’

‘What are you planning to do while you’re here?’

‘Well, we thought we’d go and see the old city tomorrow, then maybe go and see the DMZ or the tombs the following day’

‘Ok great, well let me show you some of the tours we offer’.

At this point, seemingly from nowhere, Thu whipped out a massive ledger and proceeded to show us all the tours offered through her and her family and friends whilst bad-mouthing every other tour provider including out hotel (we hadn’t told her where we were staying, but she knew it was terrible anyway). Still, credit where it’s due, that was a well laid sales pitch we walked in to. We made our excuses, paid for our lunch and headed back to the hotel where we made much cheaper plans for the coming days.

The following day we set off to cross the Perfume River, a small river by local standards, but probably about twice as wide as the Thames is by Parliament. Immediately across the river sits the massive, fortified citadel of Hue, the capital of the Dan Trong Empire in the 18^th century and then seat of the Nguyen empire under French occupation from the early 19^th century until 1945. The city was also the scene of one of the most ferocious and bloody fighting of the Vietnam war, still bearing the scars of bomb damage and bullet holes to this day.

Hue citadel is vast and very imposing, a much more impressive sight than we were anticipating. The outer walls are a good 30 feet thick and 50 feet high with pentagonal battlements jutting out every few hundred meters of so along a wide, lotus filled moat. Once inside we crossed over a large parade ground dominated by a wide, 3 tier flag tower with a massive Vietnamese flag slowly swaying in the steady breeze. Across the parade ground sits a Chinese style, 2 tier pagoda atop a section of the inner wall with a 15-foot-high gate which serves as the entrance to the heart of the citadel.

We bought our tickets from the ‘selling boot’ and headed on in. The inside of the citadel is roughly square in shape, the central 3^rd of which is dominated by a massive open courtyard flanked by covered walkways and pagodas. At the end of this central walkway was the royal palace, heavily damaged during the war and subsequently completely destroyed to make way for a full reconstruction currently in the works. To either side of the main thoroughfare are complexes of temples, gardens and houses, each belonging to either members of the imperial family or serving as housing for senior courtiers.

We worked our way clockwise around the citadel, exploring the maze of temples, courtyards, gardens, ponds and houses which seemed to never end. Hue citadel quickly became one of our favourite places that we’ve been so far in South East Asia, it was such a pleasant surprise how big the site is and how much there is to see and at the time of our visit it wasn’t at all busy so we had large sections of it all to ourselves. Too soon though the heat, which had long since exhausted the 3 litres of water we had brought with us, had got the better of us and we had to retreat to take a break from it and get some lunch, with a good 40% of the site still unexplored.

After lunch we headed up to the museum of antiques which featured many of the more valuable treasures from the citadel, particularly from the Nguyen dynasty, which fortuitously had been placed in Hanoi for safe keeping for the duration of both the first and second Indochina wars. The museum wasn’t huge, and unfortunately doesn’t allow photographs to be taken, but as it was included in the price of the entry to the citadel it was worth seeing, if for no other reason than to enjoy the air-conditioned room full of ancient Cham statues which were very interesting and we were sure to study in great detail. By late afternoon and after a lot of walking we’d had our fill and steadily made our way back across the river, taking a moment to enjoy the fantastic view westwards towards the mountains.

The following morning we hired a bike from the hotel and set off to visit a couple of Tombs of former emperors, the entrance fees to which were included in the ticket we’d bought for the citadel the previous day. Our route out of Hue involved navigating an enormous, chaotic and uncontrolled roundabout that intersected 6 different roads. With no lanes, no priority system and traffic coming from every direction, it was probably the single most intense driving experience of my life. Somehow, we survived, and soon enough we were following a nice deserted country road winding through the low hills up to the tomb of Emperor Khai Din of the Nguyen Dynasty. Khai Din was the 12^th and penultimate emperor of Vietnam, reigning between 1916 and 1925. Due to his willingness to collaborate with the French colonial administration, he was a deeply unpopular emperor amongst the Vietnamese people. It was Khai Dinh who decreed the end of the usage of the Chinese writing system in Vietnam, instead adopting a Latin script system developed by the French in 1919. He also approved a tax hike on Peasants ordered by the French in 1923, partially because it allowed for him the funds needed to build the opulent tomb which we were now visiting.

So, all round, not a great guy for Vietnam, but at least he had the foresight to contribute a small attraction to Vietnam’s booming tourism industry. The tomb is built on to the side of a steep hill about 10 miles south West of Hue and about half a mile inland from the banks of the Perfume river. From the base the tomb is obscured by a steep set of steps (goody) leading up to a small hexagonal pagoda flanked by statues of mandarins and elephants and a pair of sizeable obelisks (insert overcompensating joke here). Past this level is a set of 3 smaller tiers with engraved balustrades and trees in large stone planters, with the final large tier at the top being devoted solely to the mausoleum. With the exception of mausoleum itself, the whole complex is built in grey and black stone, much of which appears to have a volcanic quality. There is a huge attention to detail here, nearly every surface has engravings of traditional scenes, religious iconography and symbolism and, rather ironically, Chinese lettering.

The mausoleum however is made of white marble and is in a style a little more like a western stately home, grand and orderly, with large windows and neo-classical-like columns recessed into the walls, but with Chinese inscriptions engraved into them as well as carvings of dragons above the awnings. Inside the decor is most impressive, every surface is painstakingly tiled with ceramics depicting dragons, scenes of traditional Vietnamese life and brightly coloured floral patterns. The ceiling is painted like a cloud filled sky with dragons dancing between them and at the centre of the room is the tomb itself, atop of which sits a golden statue of Khai Din upon his throne.

Say what you want about kowtowing to colonial powers and selling out your own people, it’ll get you a pretty damn sweet grave.

We jumped back on the bike and headed over the river to Minh Mang Tomb (yes, that is fun to say aloud, try it). Minh Mang was the second emperor of the Nguyen Dynasty, reigning from 1820 until 1841 and contrary to Khai Din was renowned for his opposition to French colonialism, as well as his devout Confucianism.

Like Khai Dins Tomb, there is a long approach filled with statues, gardens and pagodas, however instead of being on the side of a hill, Minh Mang Tomb is constructed on the flat dissecting a large artificial lake. Smaller shrines and temples built on mounds line the lake, hidden amongst the trees around the outskirts. The construction style of the approach, with the faded yellow walls, the terracotta roofs and the pastel colours of the detailing on the décor, is much akin to the construction style in Hue Citadel. Between several of the pagodas and pathways leading from the entrance gate to the tomb are small ponds filled with coy carp who follow you along the pathways hopping to be fed. At the end of the approach a thin bridge across the join between the two halves of the artificial lake leads up to the tomb. Atop a flight of steps sits an understated lead-grey wall behind which is the tomb itself; buried in an overgrown artificial hill which somewhat resembles a Saxon burial mound. The simplicity of the tomb is in striking contrast to the ornate beauty of the rest of the complex and in particular the opulence of Khai Dinh’s.

Our adventures for the day concluded we set off back to Hue, this time taking a slightly longer and much more pleasant route following the river and avoiding Dante’s Roundabout. That evening, having reached the point where we were getting a little bored of rice and noodle’s for every meal, we walked down to the trendy downtown area of Hue to a Mexican Vietnamese fusion restaurant (yes, it does work, very well in fact) before going for a stroll along the river to cap off what had been a very enjoyable couple of days.

The following morning we had a fairly early start as we had booked a place on the tourist bus to Da Nang via the Hai Van pass. The Hai Van pass, (sometimes referred to in local marketing as the ‘Top Gear Road’ as it was featured in the Top Gear Vietnam Special about 10 years ago) is the old road over the mountain heading southwards and was at one time the main route between north and south. In the early 2000’s a new tunnel was built connecting Hue to Da Nang meaning that today the road sees little traffic other than tourists who come to enjoy the fantastic views of the coast from the top. After half an hour of waiting around in the lobby for the bus o turn up word reached us that the bus had broken down, so instead the hotel had organised a private car to take us over the pass.

I suppose that is an adequate alternative.

Soon enough we were on our way in the back of a spacious, air conditioned chaufer driven saloon and cruising along towards the mountains. We stopped about 45 minutes later just north of the pass by Lap An Lagoon, a large, crystal blue tidal lagoon used extensively for oyster farming. At least, that’s what we inferred from the presence of numerous stilted huts out on the water and the pearl slinging vendors who swamped us as soon as we got out of the car asking us where we were from (this was definitely not the time to be polite). We took a few minutes to walk up to the waters edge for a little wade and to take some pictures. We expected the water to be warm but it was almost like a hot spring, it must have been at least 30C, and the sand was brimming with thousands of tiny hermit crabs. All along the small road next to the lagoon are large construction works. I suspect if we came back in 5 years this whole area will be Vietnam’s next big tourist resort, and it’s easy to see why.

On the way back to the car Katy’s flip flop, which had been hanging on by a thread for a little while now, finally gave up the ghost, which served as a slight blessing as it helped us to break the ice a little with our Driver who we were worried was not going to take too well to us dragging soggy sand in to his nice clean car. Fortunately, Katy had here sandals with her, so it proved only a mild inconvenience rather than a major problem and we were soon under way again. From the Lagoon we quickly started climbing the mountain up along the pass, stopping at a few choice locations to admire the view and take some pictures before arriving at the highest point where there are the remains of an American outpost, one of the most northerly positions held by the South Vietnamese and the Americans during the war. Today, the ruins offer a great vantage point north back towards Hue and Lap An Lagoon as well as south towards Da Nang bay.

On our decent from the bunker it was my turn to break a flip flop (maybe it felt a sense of comradery with Katy’s) and so I was forced to hobble back across the baking hot road surface to the car, much to the amusement for our driver. We set again for Da Nang arriving early afternoon at the amusingly named ‘Go Home hostel’. But we can tell you more about Da Nang in the next blog.

We know man, we were there

Despite the convoluted visa application process, entering Vietnam proved to be a far less an ordeal than entering Laos had been. As tempting as the prospect of a 30 hr bus ride through the mountainous jungle from Luang Prabang to Hanoi was, we opted instead for the 50 minute flight and arrived armed with our electronic visa ready to get caught on whatever bureaucratic snare was going to be in place to relieve us of a few extra dollars. To our surprise, no such snag existed, and we were greeted instead by a very smartly dressed and remarkably cheerful member of the Vietnamese People’s Revolutionary Imigration and Customs Service who quickly stamped us in, and so in no time at all we succeeded where the US Army had failed and reached North Vietnam. It had been a very long day of seeing museums and travelling about (it’s a hard life) so we were pretty wiped by the time we made it to our home for the next 5 days, ‘Hanoi Buddy Hostel’ and promptly fell asleep.

The next morning we made our way down for breakfast where we were greeted by the incredibly friendly and slightly over-enthusiastic manager of the hotel, who dresses like a Jehovah’s witness and was intent on interrogating us at great length about our plans for our time in Hanoi (We don’t know, we haven’t even had breakfast yet!). Soon enough we were venturing out into the chaos of Hanoi’s streets, making our way down to Hoan Kiem Lake, a small body of water in the south of Hanoi’s old quarter. The name means ‘lake of the returned sword’ and in its centre stands Turtle Tower, named after the Vietnamese folktale, where a 13^th century emperor who was boating on the lake gave his magic sword to a golden turtle that emerged from the water. A likely story.

After a spot of lunch by the lake we walked down to the Vietnamese Women’s museum. The museum is dedicated to commemorating and celebrating the role that women have played in the history of the country, focussing first on the role of women in family life before looking at key female leaders and figures in Vietnam’s struggles for independence against first the French, then the Japanese and finally the Americans. Unlike many of the other museums we would be visiting in Hanoi, the Women’s museum was relatively neutral and free of ideological bent (relatively being the operative word; there was still plenty of idolisation of the great and glorious patriotism of the revolutionary leaders mixed in with the tales of impressive military stratagem and the genuinely harrowing suffering of women soldiers imprisoned by the French). The museum is spread over 3 floors each with a distinct theme and features a really well put together audio guide and good (i.e. legible) translations. After learning about women in traditional family life in some of Vietnam’s over 50 ethnic groups and the work of revolutionaries and agitators during the 20^th century we decided we had had our fill, skipping entirely the final section of the museum which dealt exclusively with our old friend traditional textiles and fashion (yawn).

Dinner that evening gave us the first opportunity to try some authentic Vietnamese cuisine, and so we set off to have Bun Cha at a small nearby restaurant. Bun Cha features spring rolls, rice noodles and herbs dipped into soup by the diner at their leisure. The dish was made somewhat famous by Obama during his visit to Vietnam when he embarked on a definitely not staged managed ‘spontaneous’ visit to a Bun Cha restaurant with Anthony Bourdain. The dish was amazing and, along with a couple of beers the bill for both of us came to just under £5. We could get used to this.

The following morning, we again faced the cult-like grinning inquisition of the hotel staff over breakfast before heading off to the Vietnamese War Museum, about a 20-minute walk away. Now seems as good a time as any to discuss navigating the streets of Hanoi. It’s a total melee; a hive of human activity which is unlike anything else we’ve encountered on our travels. The old quarter which occupies the centre of Hanoi immediately to the east of the parliament buildings is a tightly packed, sprawling and chaotic crucible of traffic, venders, shops and restaurants. The narrow pavements are used as overflow seating and/or kitchens where they aren’t in use as motorbike parking and huge trees poke up every 50 feet or so, intertwining with the overhanging buildings and electrical cables and providing shade for the dogs, cats and chickens which dart about the streets between the traffic. The bike and restaurant filled pavements have the knock-on effect of turning the road in to a shared space between pedestrians, motorbikes, bicycles, cars, venders, buses, trains, trucks and whatever else needs to get from A to B. about 60-70% of the traffic consists of motorbikes and scooter; cars being an expensive luxury still unaffordable for the majority of Vietnamese (not that they could park them anywhere) and whilst nominally Vietnam drives on the right, in reality people drive wherever there is space to get a bike (including on the pavement if it’s available).

As a pedestrian this is all rather alarming at first, vehicles came at you from all angles, bikes weave around you constantly, venders chase you in to the street trying to make a sale and every which way you turn traffic criss-crosses on unmarked intersections where priority is seemingly determined by who has the most trust in their brakes. Yet there a manic zen-ness to it to it all that is hard to describe, everything just sort of works and you never feel in any particular danger. the leisurely chaos is infectious in no time at all you find yourself at ease with bikes and cars whizzing mere inches either side. Katy described the junctions as being like mad dances, and I’m inclined to agree.

So anyway, we survived the beautiful chaos of the streets and arrived at the War museum in good spirits and looking forward to an opportunity to learn more about the events for which this country is most infamously known. The museum is spread across 3 large repurposed colonial buildings alongside a v-shaped courtyard featuring a massive brick flag tower and numerous planes, helicopters and heavy artillery either captured from or abandoned by the USA after the end of its involvement in what the Vietnamese refer to, unsurprisingly, as ‘The American War’.

After a brief exhibition detailing some of Vietnam’s early military history, primarily involved around fighting the Khmer, the Thais and the Chinese, the museum quickly moves on to the resistance of the French in the first Indochina war. At this point the tone of the museum notably shifts, lamentably but inevitably, from historical account to propagandistic self-aggrandisement of the glories of the anti-imperialist revolution. This tone, blended with the trappings of Marxist rhetoric and iconography, is maintained pretty much constantly through the rest of the museum and as such it’s hard take this museum seriously as a source of information about the wars that plagued this part of the world for much of the 20^th century. It’s a shame really, because whilst the museum has a selective account of history, it’s not like the exhibits are fabricated and there can be no doubting that the Vietnamese people have been subjected to terrible atrocities and made huge sacrifices which deserve to be well documented. The museum, rather than being instructive in the history of the wars waged in and on Vietnam, is more an exemplar of how a one-party communist state interprets its nation’s history to construct a narrative that serves its interests.

That being said, I can forgive a lot of a country that has been invaded by regional and global powers from just about every corner of the globe. Along with a pro-state narrative of self-aggrandisement, the museum definitely has an undertone of siege mentality which, whilst evident, is hard to truly grasp for a citizen of a country that hasn’t been invaded for nearly a thousand years. Some traits are very deep in the culture and psyche of a nation and these invariably manifest themselves in the attitude and conduct of the state. Some facets of a nations self-image can’t be manufactured from the top and defiance is clearly very deep in the psyche of the Vietnamese people.

Once we had finished our tour of the museum, we enjoyed a drink in a high-street coffee chain next to a captured American fighter plane in the museum courtyard and mulled over our re-education experience, concluding that the museum is genuinely fascinating. Not for the reasons we were expecting, but rather for being a glorious testament to the phrase ‘history is written by the victors’.

Our next stop on our adventures for the day took us to Hoa Lo prison. Originally built by the French for interning, torturing and executing Vietnamese dissidents and revolutionaries, the prison is perhaps more famously known as the ‘Hanoi Hilton’ from when it was used to hold captured American POWs including John McCain. Most of the prison was demolished in the 90’s to make way for a garish dusty pink tower block, but the eastern section which includes the main gate and a single row of prison buildings remains as a museum. If the war museum was an example of ‘history written by the victors’ then Hoa La is more like ‘history edited by the victors’.

Aside from drawing an implicit comparison between the treatment of Vietnamese by the French and the treatment of Americans by the Vietnamese that had a layer of politicking visible from space, the museum is very well laid out and weaves a very clear, chronologically succinct narrative that is fact heavy and informative with plenty of original source material on display. Particularly interesting are the numerous original diary entries from inmates as well as information relating to escapes and creative methods employed by inmates to liaise with their comrades on the outside.

Thoroughly pooped by all of the walking around in and between museums in the heat of the midday sun we set off back to our hotel, stopping off to buy some beers to accompany the evenings grand prix which is FREE TO AIR over here (grumble grumble). The following day was a somewhat more laid-back affair, with our only activity of note being a stroll down to the lakeside water puppets theatre for an hour-long performance of traditional Vietnamese water puppets. We weren’t really sure what to expect but were delighted to find the whole thing to be a light-hearted, entertaining and oft-times hilarious affair. Rather than a stage, the theatre has a slightly elevated water tank in front of a pagoda façade, from which hang green-painted bamboo blinds and from behind which puppets of Vietnamese dancers, farmers, animals and mythical creatures are skilfully operated with a series of poles and levers. The puppets are a bit old and beaten up and are clearly a bit unwieldy for the puppeteers, on occasions they would clatter in to each other, drop props, keel over or list drunkenly as they frolicked about in the water, all of which served only to add a comical charm to the performance. On either side of the tank are two podiums with a handful of musicians on each playing traditional instruments and trying in vain not to get a soaking from the erratic splashing of the puppets

The show was like what you might expect if Punch and Judy had been given a grant to write a show for Broadway but spent most of the money on booze. Katy and I spent a good portion of the show in hysterics, enjoying ourselves way more that we had expected to and certainly a lot more than the miserably old gits around us who seemed to think that they were watching some high-brow art-house film that was supposed to be taken deathly seriously. Their loss.

For our last full day in Hanoi we thought it would be fitting to make pilgrimage to visit the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, the ‘father of modern Vietnam’, and the associated presidential house and museum. The mausoleum and presidential palace are all all located in the grounds of the national assembly building; an imposing borg-cube like structure that is the quintessential example of 70’s communist brutalist architecture.

We passed through a security checkpoint and entered Ba Dinh square, the large square the lies between the national assembly building and Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum. Upon his death, Ho Chi Minh had requested that his body be cremated and his ashes spread all throughout Vietnam, but the party had better ideas and had his body embalmed and held in state in a huge, imposing mausoleum in the style of other figures of global communism, ostensibly as a lightning rod for national unity in the closing days of the war. Outside, the mausoleum is guarded by very dapper looking revolutionaries who blow there whistles liberally at tourists who walk too fast, or too slow, or take too many pictures in one place, or cross invisible lines, or go the wrong way, or stare at the national assembly building for too long, and so on and so forth.

The mausoleum is open to the public and we went with the hope of seeing Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed remain merely out of, if nothing else, a sense of morbid curiosity. Alas though we were thwarted by its closure for unspecified reasons, so we had to make do with our short, orderly march past the entrance instead. Soon enough the dapper revolutionaries were herding us towards the presidential palace. We followed the crowd through a gate past a couple of guards who looked up from their phones just long enough to single us out from the crowd of otherwise Asian-looking tourists and inform us that foreigners had to buy a ticket. I’ve no idea what them think we weren’t Vietnamese, but we dutifully complied and handed over our dong before merging back in with the crowds of Chinese, Korean, Thai and Japanese tourists who had entered for free and set off to see a small garage containing some cars Ho Chi Minh had ridden in, a building full of meeting rooms preserved as they were in the 60’s when used by the Polit Bureau (what is it with communist regimes and party meetings?) and the ‘House on stilts’, a simple dwelling that Ho Chi Minh definitely lived in so as to live a life ‘like the people’. Katy observed that the house on stilts doesn’t have a toilet and also happens to be about 50 meters from the very extravagant 4 story colonial style Presidential Palace.

As we left were bombarded with opportunities to buy Ho Chi Minh memorabilia, Coca Cola, Walls ice cream, the same elephant trousers that we have seen on every single street in South East Asia and bizarre dancing cat ornaments. Maybe that’s why we weren’t allowed in to the mausoleum, Ho Chi Minh was too busy spinning…

Our final stop on our re-education adventure was the Ho Chi Minh Museum. A diamond shaped, 6 story building cantered around a 12 foot bronze statue of ‘Uncle Ho’ and filled with two galleries of pro Ho Chi Minh propaganda (their word not mine) and an entire floor of seemingly unrelated objects such as wooden benches, giant fruit, old televisions, mock-ups of Parisian streets and abstract soviet-style statues. There was very little English (or Vietnamese for that matter) and the whole thing was rather strange and completely unintelligible.

We left the museum, again presented with the opportunities to purchase the fruits of western capitalism and made our way to a café near the lake to again mull over what we had seen. There’s no doubt that the presentation of Ho Chi Minh is impressive, but what is so frustrating about the whole thing is that it’s near impossible to tease out to what extent the people of Vietnam genuinely revere him, and to what expect that behave as though they revere him because they are expected by the state to do so. How much of what we are seeing is genuine and how much is the cult of personality crafted by propaganda. The problem with propaganda is not so much the lies, it’s the muddying of the truth. More than anything, it just left a sense of frustration that there wasn’t even an attempt at an honest account of the man’s life, something that would have been of real interest to us.

Overall though, our first impressions of Vietnam have been fantastic and we’ve both quickly fallen in love with Hanoi and its people. Our next stop is Ha Long Bay, but Katy will tell you about that…

OR WILL SHE…

To the cave is for tourist with a goo view.

Despite 4 hours of terrible pop music on a bus with decor that was like a retirement home on acid, we arrived in Vang Vieng in good spirits. From the ‘bus station’ – a large featureless strip of tarmac in the town centre which, we later learned, was once part of a runway built by the Americans during the Vietnam war- it was only a short walk to our hotel, and we’d even arrived in time to have a spot of late lunch at a nearby restaurant. Despite the erratic driving, these short hops are so much mor refreshing.

We’d been in two minds about coming to Vang Vieng on our travels, the small town on the banks of the Nam Song river once had an infamous reputation for being a lawless party town, where revellers would come to get hammered in the riverside bars before jumping in to the river from bridges or floating over the shallow rapids in rubber tubes. The town subsequently became notorious for excessive consumption of alcohol, drug and general debauchery until a spate of drownings in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s forced the Lao government to clamp down on the worst offending establishments, tearing up much of the ad-hoc riverside bars and tube rentals and more heavily regulating the ones that remained. From what we’d read, whilst the town hadn’t completely lost its wild side, there had been a real push to gentrify the place and now it was much more geared up for sensible curmudgeons like ourselves.

What?

Well anyway, we decided on balance we would come here for a few days as it was on our way to Luang Prabang anyway, it broke that journey nicely in half and supposedly there’s some very nice scenery in the area. Upon arrival it was immediately apparent that what we’d read was largely true; the centre of the town is now dominated by hotels and restaurants catering to the toursist of Asia’s burgeoning middle class, ‘tubing’ was now organised through tour agencies rather than being an alcohol -fuelled free for all and, with the exception of ‘Gary’s Irish Bar’ just up the road from our hotel, there wasn’t much at all in the way of dedicated drinking holes. Irish bars, I suspect, are protected by some kind of international treaty, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was one in Pyongyang or Mecca.

After killing time in our hotel for a few hours restless legs took over and we decided to for a little stroll down to the river before finding somewhere for dinner. This plan lasted for a good 5 minutes before the heavens opened and, despite our hardy British rain resilience, we found ourselves ducking under the awning of a souvenir shop to get out of the downpour. Once the rain had subsided from Poseidon’s wrath to merely chucking it down, we hurriedly made our way to the first half-decent restaurant we could find where Katy made friends with a Parisian couple trying to explain to the bemused waitress that they only wanted bread and butter. The rain stopped and we made our way back to get an early night as we’d decided the following day to set off trekking up one of the nearby mountains. Evidently we learned nothing in South America

Vang Vieng sits on a flat plain a few miles wide which runs north to south between two ranges of lead grey, jungle covered kurst limestone mountains that jut dramatically out of the landscape. The terrain doesn’t have the incredible scale of the Andes, but it has its own understated beauty, and the low clouds hanging around the tops of the mountains made for a picturesque (and crucially, relatively cool) walk out from Vang Vieng. After an hour we arrived at the village of Pha Ngern from which we embarked on a 600 meter climb up through the jungle to a small viewpoint overlooking the valley and the dense jungle on the taller mountains further west. The climb took about an hour and a half over increasingly rough terrain, with the final quarter requiring clambering over rocks with the aid of ropes tied on to trees and stakes. Despite the relative coolness of the morning cloud cover and the gentle rain, the humidity was relentless and after only a few minutes of climbing we were both drowning in sweat and being swarmed by mosquitoes kept at bay only by the surprisingly effective repellent we had acquired the previous day.

The view from the top was worth the climb though, and we sat relaxed on wooden decking of the mountain top hut and made the most of the steady breeze coming across the valley. After enjoying the view, the impressive local wildlife and a can of coke from a little old lady who, rather impressively, runs a shop atop the mountain, we made the slow and arduous journey down and back to Vang Vieng for several well-deserved beers.

The combination of the heat and the terrain made for a climb as challenging as anything we did in South America and I felt even more wiped out by it than I did by climbing Salkantay. The resulting muscle ache, along with the aftereffects of one-too many beers at Gary’s Irish bar, was a write off day the next day where even making it down to the shop next door was something of a struggle.

No matter though, to make up for our lazy day we booked ourselves on to a kayaking and caving expedition the following day. Our tour company of choice was Green Discovery Tours. Despite the gentrification of Vang Vieng, the tour industry is somewhat hit-and-miss with the various companies around the town having very mixed reviews on trip advisor. Green Discovery have, by quite some way, the best reviews and, whilst a little more expensive than other companies, have a focus on ecological sustainability as well as working to support local communities and businesses.

We were picked up by our guide Bot and his driver the following day at 9am and made our way about 7 miles north to a small gravel beach on a stretch of the river opposite a steep mountainside. We didn’t pay for a private tour, but as we were the only people signed up, that’s what we got. One of the other bonuses of paying to go with a more expensive company in the off-season, I guess. The kayaks were unloaded, and Bot asked us if we’d done any Kayaking before. ‘Yes, we have’ we both confidently said, no doubt re-assuring Bot that he was in for an easy day’s kayaking down the river with two experienced Kayakers who definitely weren’t going to dunk themselves several times as a result of their inexperience…

After a brief ‘safety talk’ we placed our belongings in to a waterproof bag tied to the top of our 2-person kayak and jumped in, Katy up front and me at the back. Our first stop was just 200 meters down the river to the other side where we pulled up on a to mud bank whilst local children splashed water at us. We got out and climbed up to see the ‘Elephant Cave’, so named for a stalagmite formation that looks a bit like an elephant. Inside the cave, along with the aforementioned elephant is a buddha statue (what a surprise) and an oversized indentation of the Buddha’s foot. I asked Bot what the significance of the Buddhas foot in Buddhism is and he answered by telling me about various places in the area the Buddha is supposed to have visited. Well I tried. Google can pick up the slack later.

There isn’t much else to the cave, so we set off back to our Kayaks which, to my pleasant surprise, hadn’t been hijacked by the local children, and set off down the river. Soon we were away from all signs of human life and the steady current was taking us through the lush jungle along tranquil waters with the tops of the mountains poking in to view on either side. Yes, this is exactly what we had in mind for the day.

Around a bend in the river we came across some small rapids that we navigated with ease, following the course Bot took and avoiding the rocks and eddies. After successfully navigating the first set of rapids we were feeling bullish and confidently took on the second set, realising too late that we weren’t going fast enough to be able to steer away from a tree growing from a small outcrop right slap-bang in the middle of the river. The kayak healed over to the left and we were both unceremoniously dumped into the water. Fortunately, the river was quite shallow and refreshingly cool, so we soon go ourselves to our feet and the boat back under control whilst Bot went chasing after Katy’s oar. After having a good laugh at our own expense, we got the kayak away from the worst of the rapids and tried to get back in. The water rushing past our legs made this somewhat difficult though and we had to resort to flopping out of the water face-first on to the Kayak and then twisting over. It was terribly undignified.

Unfortunately, this kind of set the tone for the next hour or so, not helped by the fact that the kayak, now having taken a dunking, had taken on some water inside the hull and was becoming increasingly unstable. This, combined with Katy and I never having rowed a kayak together (and quickly deciding that we never would again), meant that by the time we got to lunch we’d taken another 3 undesired swimming sessions. Whilst being soaked is quite refreshing in this weather, by the time we’d got to Lunch it had lost its allure and was getting somewhat tedious. It was only now that Bot decided to tell us that this was the first time this season that they had started the Kayaking from so far up the river, and that once the rainy season is in full swing the depth of the river makes the rapids less volatile and easy to navigate through. Now he tells us. I asked Bot if anyone had ever fallen in as much as we had and he pretended not to understand the question, instead saying just that the river is quite difficult today. Diplomacy is definitely an innate talent of the Lao people.

After drying off a bit and having some lunch which Bot cooked for us on an open fire by the river, we swapped Kayaks, hoping the other kayak would have a bit more stability under two big-bottomed farangs. I know a bad tourist blames their tour operator’s equipment, but we felt vindicated when the other Kayak proved to be much more stable. This combined with the fact that we were getting a handle on how to control the kayak and communicate with each other meant that we took no more unwanted swims for the rest of the day. Hooray.

Our next stop was Mulberry Organic Farm, a small plot of land where crops and animals are farmed using traditional methods. The farm has an on-site guest house and café where we were invited to true some iced tea made with tea leaves from the farm, before continuing on our way past at least 15 bars all advertising themselves as ‘the last bar before town’ to our final stop just north of Vang Vieng.

We pulled up on the beach on the inside of a sharp left-hand bend in the river and crossed over a rickety wooden bridge being careful not to get run over by motorbikes. Once on the other side we walked up towards a cliff where we were handed a head torch and a rubber tube and helped into a narrow stream running in to a narrow cave.

Once we had all got in, we grabbed hold of a rope tethered to the wall and hauled ourselves along into the opening. Inside the space opened up into a huge stalactite and stalagmite filled cavern, the only light coming from our head torches. We continued in, past a group of Chinese tourists happily singing to themselves as they pulled themselves in the other direction and made our way to a set of steps out of the water. Here we exited our tubes and Bot set them on their way, following the course of the stream back to the entrance of the cave. We continued on foot, climbing the steps and arriving at another large open cavern before dropping back down into another part of the stream. We waded waist deep through to a second cavern, climbing up a set of steps recessed into the rock. By now there were no other tourists and we had the incredible sight of these massive natural halls all to ourselves. The weird organicness of the stalagmites, the cool, still air, the silence, and the strange crab like insects that shun our torches, it was otherworldly, and easily the next thing we had done in Laos so far. As we worked our way through the cave, we also came across some bats who fluttered around us in absolute silence.

We made out way-out of the cave and back down to the kayak for our final half-hour paddle back in to Vang Vieng where we pulled ourselves ashore and parted ways with Bot. We were thoroughly exhausted, and still not fully dried out, but all in all we had had an awesome day and that evening we slept very, very, very well.

On to Luang Prabang next.

No power, dubious plumbing & cheap beer.

I suppose it’s something of a cliché that travelling is a wonderful and life changing experience. ’Oh it’s amazing’, you hear people say ‘you’ll have an incredible time, I loved every minute of it’. A suspiciously high proportion of these people though appear to have smoked a little too much weed or read one too many guardian articles (or both…probably both). Truth however is that, unless these people have some perverse love of spending hours and hours in sweaty, cramped vehicles bouncing around on roads and railways of variable quality, what they really mean is that the bits in between travelling are amazing. Travelling itself is a tedious necessity that bookends the ‘incredible time’ with a lengthy intermission of boredom punctuated by occasional acute frustration.

Our last day in Chiang Mai had sadly proven to be a bit of a right-off owing to my finally succumbing to the consequences of my adventurous palate. We had intended to visit Doi Suthep, supposedly a very pleasant temple complex on the hills over-looking the city, but alas it wasn’t to be. Ah well. If there’s one thing South East Asia isn’t short of, it’s very pleasant temple complexes.

The first leg of our journey saw us off bright and early to make our way south back to Phitsonaluk, where we had booked ourselves in for a night in an unremarkable, but cheap, guest-house near the river. A meal and a sleep later we were on our way again, this time catching a bus through the mountains to Khon Kaen. We could have done Chain Mai to Khon Kaen in one go, but it was a 13hr bus ride. See any of our South America blogs to see why that wasn’t going to happen.

Khon Kaen is Thailand’s 4^th largest city and lies about 3 hrs drive south of the Lao border. It’s railway connection to Bangkok and road connections to the centre and west of the country makes it something of a hub for the east of Thailand and for traffic heading north to Vientiane or east inn the direction of Vietnam. It also has a surprisingly large expat community as well as some tourist attractions in its own right, so we decided to stay for a few days and use up the rest of our Visas.

We booked ourselves in to the ‘Khon Kaen Residence’ a relatively new hotel a little way out from the centre right next to a large, scary looking prison. This proved something of an issue as, like something out of ‘The Great Escape’, the prison’s PA system would pipe-up about 7am every morning admonishing the inmates for…god knows what, being a disappointment to the King maybe? It seems that whoever was operating this PA system was very dedicated to their job of telling other people how naughty they are and how benevolent the state is as this went on all throughout the day until about 8pm (at time of writing were in Laos, so I feel we can push the envelope a little more)

The hotel also turned out to be in something of a tourist blackspot, a fact that wasn’t apparent to us at time of booking. There were no restaurants, shops, other hotels or even tuk-tuks waiting to bother us within a good mile or so in every direction, so we ended up having to call a grab taxi every time we wanted to go anywhere (yay more travelling). Having spent 2 days pretty much constantly on the move our motivation to do anything on the first day in Khon Kaen was very low. We instead made bookings for Vientiane and double checked that we had everything we needed for crossing the border into Laos. In aid of this, I went for a little excursion to a Bureau de Change to swap some of our Baht for USD. Laos tourist visas can be paid for either with 35USD, 1500THB or an unspecified amount of Lao Kip. At time of writing, 1500THB is closer to 50USD so even with the small commission for exchanging Baht, you still get a much better rate paying in dollars.

Remember earlier when I mentioned ‘acute frustration’? Well let’s just say we’ll be re-visiting the subjects of US Dollars and Lao Visas in the near future.

So anyway, the following day (our last full day in Thailand☹) we decided to make up for our rather lackadaisical day the day before and head out to see some sights. Our first stop was Wat Thung Setthi, a much more modern Buddhist Temple completed in 2012. This temple is rather unique amongst those in Thailand, both in terms of its design as well as its use of imagery and iconography to convey its message and meaning. Architecturally, the building is predominantly white, but with a rounded golden stupa highlighted with turquoise decorations. The central stupa is surrounded by two tiers of walkways, the lower of which is quite broad and features mosaics of the Hellenistic zodiac and small statuettes of buddhas, lions and dragons each carefully inlayed with thin rectangular shards of mirrored glass. In each of the 4 corners are smaller stupas separated from the walkway by a triangular pond with steppingstones leading across it. The upper walkway is overhung by the roof of the main stupa and features a large mosaic mounted on the wall explaining that this site is believed to be a gateway between this world, the heavens above and the underworld below.

Whilst Katy made friends with the local dgs, I went to chck out the central stupa, a tall octagonal building with a single, marble floored room inside. The large wooden door leading into the space is engraved with the symbols of the Chinese zodiac and opposite a large obsidian-black Buddha with gold accessories sits atop a marble altar. On the sets of 3 windows to either side of the Buddha are intricate etchings depicting the three poisons of the Buddhist belief system, those being; Greed, Aversion (Anger or Hatred) and Ignorance. The etchings make use of both traditional and modern iconography to illustrate these ideas, with the designs including characters from Star Wars, numerous Disney franchises and even Walter White.

Accessible via a small staircase just outside the main stupa is a large room which sits directly underneath it. In here is a stone pillar surrounded by statues of dragons in the centre and a series of 4 massive murals along the outer walls. Unlike many of the other temples we have visited in Thailand, what is striking about this temple is that it has been built with the knowledge that it is going to attract numerous foreigners and non-Buddhists. As such the descriptions of the artwork and explanations of the iconography are all in Thai, English and Chinese and the iconography is much more explicit and accessible to somebody not already familiar with Buddhist teachings. To do this whilst not cheapening the beliefs or making the site seem like a tourist attraction first and a religious site second is impressive, and as we left we both agreed that this was probably the best of the temples we’d seen in Thailand.

We couldn’t leave Wat Thung Setthi just yet, though, first we had to go to hell! A short walk over the land-bridge from the temple and down past the Monks dorms is a small park set aside to depict Naraka, the Buddhist interpretation of hell. Here there are absurd and larger than life fibreglass and concrete statue of sinners who have accumulated too much bad karma in their lives being tortured in manners most befitting their indiscretions. There are seven sins in Buddhism (sound familiar) and there are seven groups of statues being tortured in various different ways depicting the fate that waits sinners in the afterlife; liars get their tongues pulled out, thieves get their hands smashed with clubs and sexual deviants get…well anyway you can look at the pictures for yourselves.

Following our education on what may or may not be awaiting Katy and I in the next life (no comment) we headed back in to Kohn Kaen and went for a walk around Kaen Nakhon, a large semi-artificial lake (semi as in it’s only there during the rainy season, during the dry season it routinely needs topping up) just south of the city centre which has a number of large model dinosaurs on its banks. As you do.

For our last night in Thailand we thought we’d push the boat out and go somewhere a bit special for dinner, as we had loved the food here so much and as it was the last chance we’d have to have Thai food until we returned in October , we went for Pizza. Over a surprisingly good pizza and a few beers we took stock of out time in Thailand. It’s really easy to see why so many tourists visit this country every year, it’s big without being too big, the people are friendly without being overly friendly, it’s cheap, it’s easy to get around (for the most part) and the culture is incredibly alive. In the west, there is a real tension between the past and the future, yet here Thailand seems much more at ease with the strains of the globalising world, incorporating modernity into the existing culture without losing its sense of uniqueness. No doubt if you lived here for any length of time you’d begin to see the issues and divisions in the society and the things that don’t work would become more apparent and grate on you more, but for the month we have been here Thailand has been wonderful and we’ve wound up both loving the country more than we expected to.

Onwards to Laos then.

So, despite our previous experiences with the trains we wound up using them one last time to get to Nong Khai, the Thai town which sits on the border. Getting to Nong Khai from Khon Kaen by bus proved surprisingly complicated and as the railway station in Nong Khai is right by the border control point it was the most logical choice. Fortunately this worked out fine as the train was running a mere 15 minutes late and the journey up to Nong Khai was only about two and a half hours, over an hour quicker than the bus would have been.

Khon Kaen station was recently upgraded and has only been open a few weeks now. The new station is absolutely gigantic, seemingly way bigger than the city warrants and build over two levels with the freigh line on the ground level and the passanger platforms 20 meters up in the air. Later research would reveal that Khon Kaen sits on the planned route for the Chinese led Trans-South-East Asian Railway network which plans to connect China with Singapore via Bangkok, Vientiane and Hanoi (yes that’s right, I’m the sort of sad person that would notice when a train station is too large for the town it serves and look it up several hours later). Chinese money in Southeast Asia is very noticeable, as it was in South America, and the bulk of it is going into property and infrastructure. Changing winds…

Once we got to Nong Khai it was only a short walk up to the border check point for the Thai-Lao friendship bridge, which would take us across the Mekong River in to Laos. After getting our exit stamp we waited (technically in no country) for the bus to take us across the bridge. You can walk it but it’s almost 2km to the other side and it was now about 12:30, otherwise known as sweaty o’clock. On the other side the road bears round to the left where a pair of criss-crossing chicanes swaps the traffic (with the help of lights I might add) on to the right (wrong) side of the road. Shortly past this point is Lao immigration where we jumped off the bus and were immediately surrounded by taxi and tuk-tuk drivers offering us rides to Vientiane. We hadn’t even got our visas yet but that didn’t seem to matter to them. Part of me wanted to take them up and see if they would actually wait around only for us to get refused entry, but I didn’t want to tempt fate.

We went up to the window for Visa papers and were each handed (or rather, were slung) a pile of forms to fill in. By now sweaty o’clock was in full swing and in the blazing heat we both attempted to concentrate on filling in vague, confusing forms without dripping on them, hoping that we had correctly interpreted the questions it was asking us about residence (In Laos? In Thailand? In England? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US?!?). Forms filled in we went back to the window and handed them over along with our passports, our passport photos that we had diligently brought with and the 70USD. Within seconds the friendly, helpful and smiling immigration officer was throwing the dollars back at us for being too old or beaten up or for having the tiniest of imperfections. Of the around 130USD we had on only about 10 met his exacting standard so we ended up absolutely stuck. I tried to ask how else we could pay, but he decided he’d had enough of us he told us to go to the next window over and shut his in our faces, our passports and the sole, acceptable 10USD note still in his possession

The officer in the next window was a tad more helpful and said we could combine dollars and Baht if we wanted to, but after my lengthy escapade to an exchange in Kohn Kaen for the SOLE REASON of getting dollars to pay for the visa, we now no longer had enough Baht left. The officer then told us to get the money changed for ‘better’ dollars at the exchange around the corner, however they also wouldn’t accept notes that weren’t hermetically sealed and plated in gold. By this point I was getting very worked up but Katy helpfully pointed out that this was all going to make an excellent blog post, so it wasn’t all bad. Eventually we had to make use of the over-priced ATM “recommended” to us by the customs officer who most definitely was not getting any kick-backs from the ATM provider to withdrawer some Kip to make the payment.

About half an hour after starting the process and (once I’d worked it all out later taking into account withdrawal commissions and exchange rate differences) paying about £15 more than we had anticipated, we finally got our visas. We agreed a price for a taxi from a nice man who had been hanging around whilst we trying to get everything sorted, helpfully smiling and pointing us in the direction of the different windows, the exchange booth and the ATM machine. As we set off the heavens opened and so our first experience of Lao was trying to make out the road in front of us in monsoon conditions.

We made it to Vientiane about 20 minutes later and got dropped off around the corner from our hotel, arriving to find that the heavy rain had taken out the power and preventing them from taking card payments, instead we had to use the rest of our recently withdrawn Lao Kip. Katy withdrew 2,000,000K and we’d spent it all in the space of about 30 minutes. I don’t think we’ve ever spent two million of anything on anything before, so that’s something. For the record, 2 million Kip is about £180, but it’s not quite as impressive when you put it like that.

Thoroughly exhausted we crashed out on the bed and after about 20 minutes or so the power came back on so we could finally get some precious, precious internet. It also came to our attention that the toilet fills constantly, and the drainpipe was disconnected from the sink meaning that the bathroom floor floods every time you run the tap. After a quick plumbing adventure wherein I fixed the sink but made the toilet worse and I pretended I hadn’t touched it, we headed out for a well-deserved beer for the princely sum of 90p. No power, questionable plumbing & cheap beer. Yep, this is the southeast Asia I was expecting.

Chiang Mai

So far, our route planning for South East Asia has been considerably less structured than South America. We sort of have an idea of where we’re going but if somewhere looks interesting along the way then we’ll stop there for a bit (see Ayutthaya and Sukhothai). Having had quite our fill of the trains (we were starting to understand why the locals avoid them), we decided to take the ~6-hour journey north to Chiang Mai on the bus. We took our seats at the back and as the tour company had helpfully decided to remove the seats in front of us for some unknown reason, we were rewarded with ample leg room, something severely lacking in other parts of Thailand. As we neared the city, we twisted through the mountains and the jungle stretched for miles like a lush green carpet, peppered with “Attention: Elephants” signs. All in all, it wasn’t too horrendous and as Dave has previously mentioned, the Thai people seem to be more than capable of driving coaches around corners without causing the passengers onboard to fear for their lives. As with all the others we’ve encountered so far, Chiang Mai bus station is a practical but tired building, offering just enough free WiFi for us to be able to order a Grab (like Uber) and head to our hotel in the Old Town.

The Old City is a 1.5km square and was once surrounded by moats and walls to protect it. Some of the old walls still stand (although refurbished) at various entrance points but the majority were destroyed centuries ago. Still, there’s something about Chiang Mai that makes you never want to leave. Having said that, our first night here we weren’t sure we’d made the right decision, walking out to get some dinner we were confronted by what I’m told the kids call “banging tunes” and people trying to get us to come into their club. Pah! Don’t they know Dave and I are at least 65 on the inside?! It must be hard at this time of year to turn a profit, most of the bars we walked past were dead and in our week here we were rarely joined in restaurants by more than one other occupied table. Once we got past the “phat beats”, we were pleasantly surprised to find a street full of bars and restaurants far more suited to our curmudgeonly ways. Things are a lot more chilled out here, the whole city feels like everyone has just got out of a nice long bubble bath. We quickly tuned into the laid-back feel of the place and spent most of Sunday not really doing much at all. In the evening however we went to our first proper night market. All of Ratchadamnoen Road, running through the centre of the Old City, is closed off to vehicles and is chock-a-block with street stalls, musicians, monks, tourists, locals, food vendors, textiles, souvenirs, anything you could possibly imagine. Squeezing our way through the crowd, we were totally overwhelmed by the sights, sounds and smells, spotting everything from edible bugs to cheesy chips to tuk-tuk models made out of old beer cans. We also quickly discovered that one of the perks of being ‘not from round these parts’ is that even in a tight crowd, you can see over the heads of mostly everyone else, making for a much less claustrophobic and enjoyable experience. After wandering for a while, Dave, as is quickly becoming tradition, found another middle-aged woman to chat up and managed to find some shorts in his size, employing his flirtation skills to acquire a discount, and I found a bag. We spent a princely sum of around £12.50 in total – a real splurge.

Chiang Mai mentality thoroughly absorbed, and given that we’d pretty much been going non-stop since Bangkok, we decided to take a much more relaxed approach to the city, enjoying a late breakfast before heading down to Nong Buak Hard park, Kindles in hand, ready for a long hard day of not doing very much at all. It’s really exhausting all this travelling business you know. We also found that all the local museums are closed on a Monday, so we had to find something to pass the time! Located in the South West corner of the Old City, it’s quite a small park, with palm trees, fountains, fishponds and lots of tiny little black flies that get in your face, hover around your legs and make it difficult to read. I think at last count Dave had killed 82 (don’t tell the Buddhists). Tired of swatting, we headed off out of the park, stopping momentarily to buy some fish food and feed the fish (and also maybe the pigeons), before pausing for a nice cold drink in a café inhabited by various different cats who came and went as they pleased, totally non-plussed by the farangs trying to fuss over them. Once again, we were the only people in said café, which was fine by us, we didn’t come all this way to MEET people for heavens sake.

In general, our time in Chiang Mai was considerably less action packed than our previous excursions into various Thai towns and cities. This boiled down to the fact that most of the things to do are temples and we are desperately attempting to avoid #toomanytemplessyndrome. In light of this, we spent most of the following day trotting around Chiang Mai’s 3 historical museums which are largely overlapping and don’t really have that much cohesion to them – it was just like being back in Cusco! We did learn about ancient Lanna culture though and the museums were good when taken as a whole; besides, aside from the overuse of the word “auspicious”, they had air conditioning, so who are we to complain. They also offered us plenty of opportunities to view our most favourite of cultural displays – textiles! Just when we thought it couldn’t get more exciting than the 9000 displays we saw in South America, we were treated to a rip-roaring adventure into the world of ancient Thai skirts. Our fave.

Having ascertained that we found the ancient ruins/temples much more interesting than the new ones (especially as they seemed less fussed about offensive shoulders in the older ruins), we decided to pop along to Wat Chedi Luang. Built some time between 1385 and 1402, the peak measured 80 metres from its base but was partially destroyed by an earthquake is 1545, leaving it at around half of its original height. It’s still incredibly impressive and once housed the Emerald Buddha, one of Thailand’s most sacred religious relics. We also happened to turn up half way through Inthakin festival so the place was buzzing with monks and people coming to pay respects, it also meant that entrance was free – woohoo! There seems to be a festival or holiday every five minutes here in Thailand and we were beginning to understand perhaps why the French had decided this was a part of the world they wanted to get involved with, just think how many days off they could have! Inthakin is a festival unique to Chiang Mai and is a chance for citizens to offer tributes to the guardians of the city, focusing on the City Pillar, previously used in the construction of the ancient city. As we wandered around the ruins, we were totally enthralled with the celebrations, with various donation points dotted around the Wat, offering visitors a chance to donate to their birth year animal (Dave’s the tiger, I’m the chicken, boo.). Animal statues and buddhas were covered in flowers and we also observed people sending water up to the top of the Wat and pouring it onto the ruins. As we sat in the shade and enjoyed the cool breeze, a group of school children walked past and a few of them eagerly said “hello!” and waved at us, before one plucky lad decided he was going to get a high five from the two very white chunky people sitting under the tree. Before we knew it, he’d started a stampede, and Dave and I were inundated with pre-pubescent children eager to slap their hand against ours and offer us a hello. It was absolutely charming. If there’s one thing we’ve noticed here in Thailand it’s that people are a. incredibly eager to practice their English with you and b. always happy to help, even if it means they have to resort to charades.

In the afternoon, I had somehow managed to convince Dave that a trip to the cinema to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters, was in order (I still owe him for Mary Poppins Returns), so we headed off to the Central Festival Mall, located a few miles outside of the Old City. The Central Festival Mall is a bit like Lakeside, if Lakeside was 3 times as pleasant, had 1/3 of the people, and had an ice-skating rink in it. It also had a Marks & Spencer so we spent a few minutes mooching around their food hall, delighted to find Percy Pigs, Custard Creams and red onion chutney, before deciding that perhaps we could settle in Thailand after all. Thailand has very strict Lèse-majesté rules, which basically means that any negative comments regarding the monarchy can get you locked up. Tourists have often fallen foul of this law, even for blogs written outside of Thailand, therefore I shall simply say that having to stand for the national anthem and a short video praising the King before the film started was certainly an experience I will never forget and truly a great honour. Should anyone wish to find out just how stellar a chap the new King is, they need only Google him. Moving swiftly on then…

bty

Apart from a trip to a slightly more disappointing night market where we acquired two fantastic beer coolers which seem to be all the rage here, the rest of our time in Chiang Mai passed relatively uneventfully. We did find some rather lovely kittens next to our hotel and as such I now carry a small supply of cat treats wherever I go but it was nice to have a bit of down time. The city’s relaxing vibe seems to seep from every crevice, and I think we probably could have spent several weeks drinking and reading in bars without noticing how quickly the time was passing. But, we didn’t spend all this time saving to drink ourselves into a stupor (well, at least not every night) so onwards to Laos we headed…