Yo
Since I last wrote I've spent a fair bit of time in the beach capital of cambodia - Sihanoukville. Some of the beaches at Sihanoukville are a tad crappy, but I was fortunate enough to be staying on the nicest of them by far. It had genuinely squeaky sand (that kind of white sand on tropical beaches that you can actually hear squeaking as you walk on it) and an interesting kind of crowd that congregated at one end of the beach. My first few days there were pretty mellow, with me and Ange just enjoying quiet days and nights on the beach. But then Ange's money came to an end, she went back to London, I was left on my own upon which time i seemed to meet the most random of customers at the loudest and most packed bar on the beach...
It was the kind of bar where not only did people sit at tables and roll up their own doobies, but they were actually passed all along the bar itself and the bar staff often partook. It was here that i met some very random people, like this French hippie that went to go to India for 6 months but stayed for 13 years, an Iranian who ran away from military consciption and had since spent 23 years floating from place to place and a whole host of others whose drug use surprised even me. A random cambodian guy would float around the bar offering to sell little bags of "cocaine" (though i doubt it was) for 20 US dollars, and i was there one night when a whole group of these randoms bought a bag each and downed it in one go. 10 minutes later, even though the temperature was relatively cool at nights some random french dude that had partook suddeny had his body temp go through the roof, he took off his shoes and his shirt but he was still sweating more profusely than anyone i've ever seen. He just sat and the bar, grabbed a big box of napkins and wiped his forehead every 5 seconds, and evey 5 seconds the napkin came away from him sopping wet. His eyes had gone like those of a lizard, with his eyes looking in two completely different directions at the same time. I helped the bar staff out with this guy for a while, talking him out of ordering a beer and making him get some fruit juice instead, then i agreed to a request from one of the bar girls to take him out of the bar and sit on some loungers down by water (where it was quite a bit cooler). I sat with him for about 10 or 15 minutes before he slowly came back to planet earth. I dunno what it was that those guys actually snorted, but it didn't look like a very good time. He was probably one of the most bung people i've ever seen and i've seen a few bung people in my time. I'm glad i never had any, i was just content to puff on the many doobies that got put in front of me as they all seemed to traverse around the bar as if they belonged to no-one.
Apart from dealing with screwed up random people in the night time, my days were spent on that beautiful beach. The water was warm like bathwater, and really clear. It was a really relaxing few days, and I read a few short stories and Nick Hornby's "About A Boy" which i enjoyed a lot. A lot of the restaurants and bars along the beach were content with guests bringing their own CDs along, so I played some nice chill Roger Sanchez and Layo and Bushwacka for those punters that were about.
After that it was back to the capital again, Phnom Penh. In Phnom Penh, I went to the killing fields of Pol Pot. In the later 1970s, under Pol Pot as many as 1 in 8 cambodians may have been bopped off. The killing fields were pretty grisly, with lots of exhumed mass graves and and massive temple built as a memorial that had hundreds, in fact probably thousands, of skulls piled way up high. Pol Pot troops were carefuly not to use bullets on those that they didn't need to, so i got to see the big solid tree that they used to bash childrens heads into to save on bullets, and saw an exhumed grave that had contained the bodies of over 150 under-5's. There was also another mass grave that had contained about 180 headless skeletons. All pretty grim really. After that, I made my way to the former head torture center and prison under Pol Pot's regime which has been pretty much left they way it was found and been turned into a museum. It was here where they used to torture people before sending them off to the killing fields. There were all sorts of implements like garden hoe's and spades, and pick axes lying about on the floors that they used to hit people with - relics from those days. All pretty depressing really.
After doing a few other things in Phnom Penh, I caught the bus to where I am now: The largest city in Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. Have had a good few days here, and its incredible how many people i keep bumping into. In one 48-hour period here, I bumped into no less than eleven (!) people I'd met over the previous 10 days, and saw another two on the other side of the road but was so over bumping into people by then that i couldn't actually be bothered crossing the road to say hello. Two of the eleven are even in this internet cafe right now!
I've been to the musem formerly known as the Museum of American War Crimes, which changed its name to the War Remnants museum once more american tourists started coming and they didn't want to alienate them too much. It was pretty impressive, with all sorts of captured american military hardware and lots and lots of very cool photos. Definitely a must-see of Saigon. Later that night, a couple of Danish girls I've met and I went to the Vietnamese circus which was cool - all sorts of crazy acrobats that did some pretty trippy stuff - including one that could hula about 50 or 60 silver hula hoops at one time while bending over forwards and backwards - seriously, you could hardly see her through them and she genuinely looked like a human-sized slinky being knocked back and forth. They also had other stuff that you wouldn't see in a western circus anymore, like a guy juggling snakes, monkeys riding bicycles, etc.
The next day, the 3 of us went on a day-trip down the Mekong to see what life is like there, stopping off at sorts of interesting little places like a humoungous fruit market, a coconut candy factory and a banana wine factory (which tastes like whisky with cinamon). It was interesting to putt around all over the mekong on the boat, and our Vietnamese guide was very excited about me being from New Zealand cos he loves Shihad/Pacifier, the Datsuns and Zed. He hadn't heard of Fur Patrol though, but he has now and is on a hunt for one of their albums.
The girls moved on from Saigon to the central highlands today, but I stayed on to go to the VERY VERY cool Cu Chi tunnels just out of Saigon. During the Vietnam War (or the American War, as they call it here), Saigon was the capital of the southern/USA forces. For much of it, they had little idea bout exactly where the 250 km of tunnels just to the north of Saigon, including one that went right under an American Base!! Heh - heh, crafty Vietnamese! I went down into the tunnels that were pretty cramped, as they were bulit deliberately small and primarly manned by vietnamese communist fighters that were between 40 and 45 kilos and under 5 foot 7 - and i don't know how many times I banged my head, scraped my shoulders and fell down on to my knees, but i managed to make my way through over 100 meters of tunnels which was pretty cool, much of it was more than 8 meters underground.
At the tunnels, they also made replicas of all the forest traps that the Vietnamese made for the Americans to fall into - deep pits with lots of bamboo spikes smeared with Cobra poison, and all sorts of crazy contraptions with big metal spikes that would have made a mess of anyone. The grottiest one was a 7-foot deep pit which included 6 round pieces of wood (3 spaced vertically on the right, 3 on the left) with metal spikes sitcking out in every direction and they would turn as a Yank fell though them - so he'd would wind up standing in a 7-foot deep pit with a set of metal spikes sticking into each side of his head, each side of his belly and each side of his legs. I fear i haven't described it well enough to paint a picture, and you will just have to see it for yourselves one day to realise what a FARKIN BIG MESS it would have made of anyone who fell through it.
Anyways, today is my last day in Saigon. I'm moving on tomorrow - though i still haven't decided where yet. Either I'm going to the nicest beach in Vietnam, Mui Ne, although after the 8 days on the beach in cambodia i am feeling a little beached out so I may just head up to the central highlands instead. I'm gonna spend a month in Vietnam in total, and I've just found out that on March 31st they have an official FIFA 2006 World Cup qualifier against Lebanon, now thats gonna be cool i reckon
Apologies for typo's - they keyboards at this internet cafe are very crappy.
See you all later.
Steve
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