By Sue (and Brendan), James’ parents

We recently spent two lovely and memorable weeks with The Backpack Duo, aka James and Chloe in northern and central Vietnam. Our first surprise was before we arrived, when I purchased £250 of the local currency, Vietnamese dong; and received 6.2 million dong, making £1 worth over 29,000 dong- we had some misunderstandings with our zeros for a while! By the time we arrived, they had already spent a week in Hanoi (hyperlink) and had found some lovely places for eating out, what to visit, booked tours, got their heads around all those zeros, etc.

Our hotel was quite close to the Old Quarter, also known as the 36 Streets, which are not far from the famous Lake of the Restored Sword where people gather at dawn for exercises. The 36 Streets were originally where the different guilds who provided services to the emperor were located. Most of them have Hang in their name, where Hang means merchandise. We did a cyclo tour which was a great way of seeing them at a good pace. We saw streets with only metal tins, or funeral artefacts, or clothing.

We also visited the Water Puppet Theatre by the Lake. This is as named, a theatre with a large bath of water with curtains on three sides, where the puppeteers stand waist high in the water behind the screen to tell folk tales, such as a fox taking the ducks that keep the rice paddies free from insects.

Our next treat was a very tasty foodie tour with our delightful guide, Lotus, a business student who wants to run her own restaurant. She had chosen the seven different restaurants/cafes we visited. We ate lots of different dishes, and they were all amazing, and gave us some very good reference points for other eating places. We also went into some eating establishments and ate things we would not have tried on our own.

 

A number of people had recommended the Vietnamese Womens’ Museum which had themed floors, e.g. women in war, women as entrepreneurs. It was excellent with many contemporary accounts and videos which brought the lives of Vietnamese women alive. Very good spot if you are interested in the social history of a fascinating country.

We joined our tour of Halong Bay, Haiphong, Lan Ha Bay and Cat Ba Island the following day. It was a mixed group of 18 people, Brits, Aussies, and a French/Japanese couple. We had a two night, three days tour which meant we turned left rather than right when we left the quay at Halong Bay. Our guide, Chang (he insisted on calling himself Tiger, we insisted on calling him Chang- James), told us that the Asian tourists would only do a day trip, as0 they refused to stay overnight on the boats. The boat was fairly basic but the food from the galley was excellent in the circumstances. Other tours were only one night, two days. We felt we had the best option, as we saw the amazing limestone karsts (like limestone icebergs rising from the sea), went kayaking into a beautiful lagoon, saw caves, watched pearls from the Bay being strung, cycled through the countryside, trekked through the jungle and so much more.

.

One highlight was stopping in a Viet Hai village on the east of Cat Ba Island to sample rice wine.

There were three varieties on offer, plain (called white), and two infused versions, one with hibiscus flowers and the other with snake (yes really!). Surprisingly, we all preferred the snake one. Our hostess showed us the most basic still you will ever see, and we met their ‘pets’, horseshoe crabs.

Whilst the others did a scramble through a jungle and over a ridge, I watched pearls which come from Halong Bay being strung into a necklace.

Back on the boat we had a massive meal that put us all to sleep. When we awoke we were sailing quietly through Lan Ha Bay, with the only other boats around us being local fishing boats- a big change from the rather congested Ha Long Bay.

On the way to Cat Ba Island proper, we came past the floating village, where over 2,000 people live on boats as fish farmers. Each boat had a very small living space (little more than a garden shed in size), and a space to ‘raise’ their fish.

The limestone karsts rise out of the ocean, often with sheer sides, and this one is used on the 200,000 dong note.

At this point, we left James and Chloe to go off to explore Phong Nha Ke Bang caves and Brendan and I returned to Hanoi to shop, wander the streets, eat delicious food, do a tea tasting and visit the Vietnamese Womens’ Museum again. This time we did the women in war floor, which was full of rich detail about the surprisingly active role women took during what they call the American War. We were particularly struck by the underground tunnels which enabled them to move munitions and people to the front line at night. One was 27 km long, with an upper layer nine metres below for living, complete with a maternity ward and crèche; then a second layer another four metres down for meeting rooms etc.; and a final layer beneath for transporting munitions. This time we visited Madame Huong’s Bakery over the road, where you choose your cakes from an amazing display, and then sit outside and watch the world go by.

We could see some of the reportedly 5 million scooters in Hanoi congregating over the road, which turned out to be a school. A different version of the school run, but still with mothers and fathers waiting at the school gate.

Scooters are everywhere. We were told that there are 7 million people and 5 million scooters in Hanoi, and they are used instead of cars to transport people and things, e.g. huge flower displays, and families of five, often with very young children asleep in the ‘people sandwich’. They are also used as beasts of burden, even two dragons.

James and Chloe meanwhile were doing some rugged caving, and we’ll leave them to describe the thrills, mud and privations.

—————————————————————————-

We all met again in Hue, the old imperial capital for just a day or so. We visited the citadel and shrines to the emperors.

The citadel was about creating a delightful, restful place for the emperor, but also was intended to prevent his own people from entering to threaten or disturb him. The avenues of trees were lovely, and we listened attentively to our guide.

We stayed at a charming hotel, La Perle, where we were greeted with complimentary fruit, tea/coffee, and welcoming staff. The next day we moved onto Hoi An by train, down the coast and through lush countryside.

Hoi An has a beautifully well preserved old quarter, and we stayed just outside, and either walked in or borrowed the hotel’s rickety bikes.

As J&C found in Thailand and Cambodia, the poor/non-existent driving skills are terrifying, people happily drive up a dual carriageway on their motorbike the wrong way. So although the bikes got us to the Old Quarter quickly, it was a hazardous occupation. It is strung with lanterns, and is pedestrianised during the day, with (weirdly) piped-in classical music in the streets.

We had arranged to meet Alex’s tailor friend, Viet and her sister-in-law, Ty, to have some clothes made. All four of us ordered clothes, such as jackets, trousers, skirts, shirts, dresses, and even coats. It was a trial trying on winter clothes in that heat, but someone had to do it!

The family was incredibly hospitable, generous, patient and welcoming, and James had a ball with their young son, Win (after whom the shop is named). We also were in Hoi An for the Buddha’s birthday when there is a night market, and people set candles adrift on the water for good luck.

Our next excursion was an eco-cookery course. First we explored to the local market.

Then we embarked on coracles (called basket boats) for some crabbing before lunch.

 

This was a big hit with Sue, who caught the most, 4.

We went up the bamboo creek to a purpose-built bamboo house for our cookery course. This was wonderful, with plenty of staff, and the right mix of hands-on experience with a slick operation to ensure we had everything cooked in time for lunch.

We made lots of delicious food, including learning how to make rice pancakes from scratch!

 

 

 

 

Back to Hoi An for more fittings of our clothes, and a new experience of coconut iced coffee. Coconut cream and condensed milk are whizzed up with ice shavings to make a semi freddo to which is added cold coffee – delicious.

On our last day we set off very early with a Banh Mi in our bellies (a Vietnamese version of a filled baguette) for the temple ruins of the Champa people.

This was so beautiful, but hot, hot, hot. J&C had researched when it was best to visit, so we arrived in between the dawn groups and the mid-morning groups, and had the luxury of the place to ourselves.

The buildings originated from between the 4^th and 14^th centuries and were built by the Hindu kings as places of Royal worship- both for the royals to use, and to deify of the King, often by making him part God in statues. However, many of the buildings were destroyed in the American War as the Vietnamese used it as a military base, and so the Americans sent in the B-52s. So now we can only see about 10% of what was discovered by a French explorer in 1898. As we were leaving, hundreds of people were arriving, so we had the best of the day, or we felt we did.

We haven’t covered the amazing shopping experiences, the bartering for even the most basic of purchases, the stunning food, the constantly exuberant liveliness of the street, all the walking and looking and listening, the evident poverty tempered with smiles and kindness, and a communist country chock full of (mostly female) entrepreneurs.

What a lovely time we had with the Backpack Duo- we were sorry to leave them!

Love from Sue and Brendan x

By James

At the end of the last post you left Jess, David, Chloe and myself on our way to Siem Reap’s tiny airport. We boarded an old school 100 seater plane, complete with propellers and travelled South to the small seaside town of Sihanoukville. Upon arrival we headed into the city and decamped at the simple, affordable hotel we had booked.

It was only when the hotel owner returned from a shop-run with wet talcum powder plastered on his bald head, grumbling about ‘drunks and hookers’, did we realise we had chosen to stay in the city’s Red Light district on the last night of Cambodian New Year! So it was with some trepidation that we headed into the district in search of dinner.

Luckily for us, the local working girls and their late-middle aged clientele had finally tired after three days and nights of drinking, water fights and talcum powder bombings, so that all that remained of the long weekend’s festivities were white streaks on the pavement, glazed eyes and a sense of an area laying low to recover.

The following morning we boarded our chartered boat and headed to Palm Beach resort on the island of Koh Rong, our private paradise for the next few days. We were welcomed by the Dutch couple who ran the place with a delicious home-concocted brew similar to Baileys. We had sprung for an upgrade and we all stayed in our own secluded hill side bamboo bungalow.

The following days were filled with very little – and it was glorious! The beautiful blue, 29 degrees (bath temperature) water surrounding the bay was so sheltered that sand had built up to the point where we could walk out for at least 200 meters and have the water only lap at our knees. Apart from a brief solo kayaking trip, we drank cocktails, ate food, read books and precious little else. …bliss!

A highlight, however, was the snorkelling trip made with our very chilled out guide, Craig. Twenty of us set off in a two small boats at 4.30pm on Wednesday (or was it Thursday? Days of the week are so meaningless on a tropical island!) After some rather disappointing reef snorkelling, in which we saw only one Parrot Fish and lots of very spiky anemones, we sat and fished somewhat despondently over the sides using coke cans and a line. Neither Chloe or I caught anything and I was beginning to wonder whether the amazing experience we had on Tioman Island (see previous blog post) had rather spoilt us. Both Jessica and David managed to catch a fish, but were pretty saddened by the fact that the fish couldn’t be thrown back : /

However, once the sun went down we cruised to the darkest patch of sea I had ever seen. I saw more stars there than I had anywhere else in my life and it was beautiful. When we stopped Craig told us to put on our masks and snorkels, and jump off the boat into the pitch black sea, promising bioluminescent plankton. We couldn’t see anything at all, let alone the promised plankton, but trusting as we are, jumped over the side anyway into pitch blackness. It was very daunting and a quite unpleasant situation to be in that tapped into a very primal fear- bobbing around in the dark there we all felt very exposed and more than a little foolish. Then Craig told us to dip our heads under water and move our hands in front of our face.

Bioluminescent plankton, as a defense mechanism, excretes a bright turquoise chemical trail when they move to confuse predators. I only realised I was surrounded by these little things when I opened my hand and out came a burst of swirling light! It is difficult to express how amazing it looked under the water and totally impossible to get any footage on our GoPro. The only thing I can say is that I felt like a wizard! With a flick of the wrist I could send out magical sparks in all directions. It was utterly wonderful and a real highlight of our time on the island.

 

After three days of rest and recuperation, we headed back to the mainland and then onwards to Phnom Penh, where we said our goodbyes to Jessica and David, after having shared two weeks of Cambodian delight.

Early the following morning, we headed back to Siem Reap in preparation for our flight to Hanoi. In the morning before our flight left we were joined by a French couple for a market tour and cooking class with ‘Ben’. The market visit was fascinating! Ben really knew his stuff and showed us things we never would have noticed or known, had we gone alone.

For example, he showed us a small family processing a coconut. We learned that the most valuable part is the cream, then the husk (ropes) and finally the desiccated coconut. This part is considered so worthless that it is only kept to feed the pigs. Bear that in mind the next time you shell out for a bag at your local supermarket for £1 per 100 grams!

 

 

 

 

After the market visit, we were driven out to the covered hut that served as our cooking school and, as we later found out, the sleeping quarters for 40 local boys. The course funded the clothing, food, accommodation and schooling for these boys and as many girls, who were either orphans or from local families who could no longer afford to keep them. The food itself was delicious, nutritious and was doing some social good- what more can you ask for?

That evening we went back to Siem Reap airport for our flight to Hanoi.

Until next time, all our love- The Backpack Duo

By Chloe.

Visiting the utterly magnificent religious complex of Angkor Wat is truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. It’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit, and although we had a three-day pass, I could easily have spent weeks exploring the quieter and further flung temples of the site.

The 12th century Angkor Wat temple sits at the center of the site and is the largest religious structure in the world. The whole Angkor complex covers a staggering 1,000 square kilometers and is considered the largest pre-industrial city in the world.

The sheer scale, the beauty and intricacy of the carvings, and the amazing state of preservation of many of the temples make Angkor one of the most outstanding historical sites I’ve ever visited.

Rather than rant on about how wonderful it is, I’ll let the photos do the talking…

Angkor Wat
We visited Angkor Wat on two separate occasions, once for the famous sunrise shot (which must accompany any respectable tourist visiting the temples), and another mid-afternoon. It truly is an astounding site.

 

Angkor Thom Bayon is another of the most well-known temples  – the amazing carved faces make it easy to see why!

 

Angkor Ta Prohm may have been made famous by Tomb Raider, but it’s hard to describe the beauty of such a place reclaimed by nature.

Lady Temple was a much quieter temple with some truly stunning intricate carvings slightly off the beaten tourist track.

The final temple we visited was just described as a Farmer’s temple, so we don’t actually know the name, but it was the most magical of all the ruins we visited. We rocked up 40 minutes before it closed, and we were completely alone on the site, not a single other tourist – it was magical!

All our love, the Backbackduo x

 

By Chloe
Goodbye Thailand… Hello Cambodia! After ten long hours on the night train (thank you Diazepam), an eight-hour wait at Bangkok airport, and a two-hour flight over mountains and jungle, we finally arrived in the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh. Now, if you’ve been following our blog, then you’ll know that we were brave enough (read foolish enough) to hire motorbikes and tour some of Northern Thailand, but decided to end it early as the roads are just too stressful to drive, and Thai drivers are just too reckless for us to feel comfortable. Cambodian roads are Whole. Other. Level! In the 40 minutes it took for our taxi driver to take us from the airport to our hotel, I saw more traffic violations than I’d seen in my entire life.

I mean, who needs to drive on the right side of the road? Surely, if you want to turn, just make your way 100 meters before your turn into a steady stream of oncoming traffic… It’ll be fine! Pavements are totally meant for motorbikes, right; who wants to walk on them? Lanes, who needs lanes? Just drive on the part of the road you want to drive on and wait for people to honk and squeeze past you.

It was utterly terrifying!

Roads aside, we arrived at our hotel and were greeted by my parents, Jessica and David without a hitch, who were enjoying an ice cold beer on the roof terrace and taking a dip into the rooftop jacuzzi… It was a pretty special way to start this leg of the adventure.

Now, of all the places we visited in Cambodia, Phnom Penh was our least favourite. It’s chaotic, built up, and its past means it feels like it doesn’t really know what it’s about. During the Khmer Rouge period (1975-1979), Phnom Penh was completely emptied of people and a quarter of the countries entire population were murdered or starved… We’re only talking around 40 years ago here. There’s a good reason Cambodia is South-East Asia’s poorest country; it has had to reinvent and rebuild itself many times over.

The main thing ‘to do’ in Phnom Penh is to visit the Killing Fields and S-21 prison (the Tuol Sleng Museum of Genocide). After visiting S-21, and spending two hours walking through a school turned prison which saw 20,000 people incarcerated, tortured (sometimes for months on end) to gain a false confession, and unceremoniously killed, we found that none of us had the stomach’s to endure the Killing Fields as well. Of those 20,000 people imprisoned at S-21, only seven survived. It was utterly harrowing, but such an important part of Cambodia’s recent history.

Editor’s note: If the last passage left you feeling slightly despondent, then take a moment, take a deep breath, close your eyes, and imagine cuddling a cute little kitten…maybe three cute little kittens. If possible, go out onto the street and find a kitten and bring it home with you. Feeling better? Good.

On to the lighter part of our trip! We left Phnom Penh the following day and journeyed up to Siem Reap, the town made famous by the legendary Angkor Wat temple complex (and Tomb Raider). There’s so much to say about the temples…check out our next blog post here to read about them.

We were lucky enough to arrive in Siem Reap in time for Sangkrana, their annual three-day New Year’s celebration. (Think Thailand’s Songkran festival and you’ve pretty much got it!) The streets of Siem Reap were filled with excited people, water gun fights, talcum powder bombings to the face, and the most speakers I have EVER seen. Every street vendor or shop had their own set of amps, blaring out slightly different Cambodian songs, or even worse, the same song at slightly different times. It was intense, but amazing to be a part of!

We loved Siem Reap; it was full of life, and the old center was beautiful (if a little touristy). The streets were lined with juice stalls, old markets and a steady stream of massage bars all offering you a foot massage by ‘Dr. Fish… He can give you massage!’ We tried it, and it was hilarious! James and David couldn’t stand how ticklish the little fish made them, but I loved it.

Our hotel was beautiful, and we spent most afternoons taking a dip in the pool, and ordering a cocktail from the poolside bar = bliss!

Now, since Phnom Penh, I’d been experiencing a slight soreness in my bottom left-hand gum, which I was treating (rather ineffectually) with Bongela. By the time a week had passed, we’d all agreed that it was probably best for me to find a dentist to get it checked out (seeing as how we weren’t planning on heading back to the UK anytime soon). So, without further ado, I cancelled the cooking course we were supposed to go on that afternoon and headed over to the local dentist. He spent a whole 30 seconds peering into my mouth before announcing that my wisdom tooth would have to come out 😦

We had earlier joked with my mum that the dentist was only allowed to take out three of my teeth…ha ha ha…so when James messaged her to say they were taking out my third molar (as in third along), she thought he was having a rather cheap laugh. It wasn’t until we sent a photo of my swollen face and rather massive tooth in a small bag that she realised we hadn’t been joking! The dentist was fabulous, as was the codeine!! What a way to spend your afternoon on holiday. Check out our explorations of some of the temples at Angkor Wat here.

All our love, the Backbackduo x