Horrors and hope in Cambodia

The journey into Cambodia from Vietnam meant our first foray onto the public bus system. I suspect all of us had visions of being jammed in cheek by jowl alongside the locals and their chickens on a rickety old contraption, or being forced to bus surf on the roof. It felt less of an adventure then when a rather smart modern coach turned up complete with TV, toilet and wifi. Later the Ginger Broad and I discovered the air conditioning over our seats wasn't working but by then our sense of adventure had worn off to be replaced by 'I'm far too hot' grumpiness.

Border crossings on land always seem to be overly complicated and elaborate affairs and the move from Vietnam to Cambodia was no exception. It went something like this: (1) clamber off the bus, hand your passport to a complete stranger then stand around feeling confused until you hear your name being yelled then reclaim passport from aforesaid stranger. You have now officially left Vietnam, (2) climb back on bus and drive about 20 yards, (3) get off bus again, hand passport to another stranger and wait for your name to be yelled again. (4) Stand in a queue and get fingerprinted by stern looking Cambodian official (unless you're over 70 when they consider you're not likely to constitute a serious threat. They've obviously not met many British 70 year olds). (5) get back on the bus and drive another 20 yards. Congratulations, you're now in Cambodia. Thank God Sam was there to walk us through it all otherwise I think we'd all still be in Vietnam.

From the border it was another couple of hours drive to Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, and, truth be told, I was feeling pretty ropey. I had the first signs of a throat infection which made eating, drinking, swallowing, breathing etc painful and after a night of very little sleep I was exhausted to boot. So I was only paying rather drowsy attention to the countryside zipping past my window but it occurred to me that this was the sort of landscape I'd expected to see in Vietnam - paddy fields, thick fringes of jungle, water oxen, small clutches of wooden homes. Things were looking good for Cambodia.

And things only improved when we headed out on to the streets of Phnom Penh on our second cyclo tour. Hardy veterans of the vehicular death traps by now, we could concentrate on enjoying the sightseeing, led by local boy Sam. As we cycloed (is that a word?) towards our first stop we saw wide avenues, numerous green parks, impressive ancient and modern architecture and a great riverside promenade buzzing with local life, including mass outdoor aerobics classes. On the basis of first impressions PP was shaping up to be my favourite of the big cities.

En route we stopped at the Independence Monument, built in 1958 to celebrate Cambodia's freedom from French colonial rule, and where, while we snapped photos, we also became the subjects of some Asian tourists' photos who thought they were being discreet as they clicked away. As dusk fell we cycloed along the river front and past the Royal Palace, brightly lit with thousands of golden bulbs. The massive plaza in front of the palace was thronging with people, locals clutching lotus bulbs and monks wearing their best saffron robes. Rhythmic chanting filled the air and Sam pointed out that they were 'moaning'. It seemed a rather harsh description for the musical sound but when Sam added that it was to commemorate the upcoming funeral of the former King, Norodom Sihanouk, I realised he had said 'mourning' not moaning. Known as the 'King Father' (as he was the father of the current King), Sihanouk had died way back in October, but royal tradition dictates a long period of lying in state before an extended funeral and mourning and then the cremation. The latter stage wouldn't take place until we had left Cambodia behind us. For us it just meant that a visit to the Royal Palace wasn't on the cards.

What was on the cards the following day was a sobering dose of Cambodia's dark and recent past. Warned that the two places on the itinerary would be distressing, not all of our group, for very valid personal reasons, opted to join the tour. The remaining members soon found themselves outside the gates of Tuol Sleng Museum. At first glance the buildings behind those gates look like an innocuous, if run down, apartment or hotel block. Only the metal fencing topped by razor wire hints at it's true sinister history. 'Toul Sleng' means 'Hill of Poisonous Trees' but until 1975 it was more simply called Tuol Svay Prey High School and was home to hundreds of students. After 1975 it was taken over by the Khmer Rouge security forces who turned it into one of their main prisons and interrogation centres, Security Office 21 or S21. For the next 3 years S21 was a house of horrors as more than 17000 people were incarcerated and tortured within its walls before being transferred to the nearby 'killing fields' at Choeung Ek were they were summarily executed.

When the Vietnamese liberated the prison at the end of the Khmer Rouge's reign of terror only seven prisoners were still alive inside, most of them having used their skills, such as photography, to cheat death. Fourteen other prisoners were found dead inside their cells, too decomposed to be identified. Their remains are now buried in the old schoolyard. As a stark reminder of the Khmer Rouge's brutality, photos of those dead bodies now hang in the cells where they were found, alongside the beds they were still chained to.  The photos are horrific and don't bear close examination, but rooms filled with other photos are chilling in a very different way.  In several rooms large boards are covered with individual portrait photos of hundreds of men, women and children.  Each has a haunted look of fear in their eyes and it's no wonder.  Each of these photos represents a person who was arrested, interrogated, tortured and killed at S21. The Khmer Rouge was as professional and organised in its recording of its crimes as the Nazi regime in wartime Germany and the meticulous nature of its detached ruthlessness is what, to me, was the most disturbing element of this whole visit. Pol Pot's regime eventually turned on itself with many of the portrait photos showing members of the Khmer Rouge party who had suddenly, for no reason, been labelled traitors and who were also slaughtered.  Not even the executioners themselves were safe and many suffered the same fate as those they had murdered in the past. 

In another block of the old school the original razor wire can still be seen covering the front of the building - placed there to stop desperate inmates from killing themselves to escape further torture.  This block also has some of the original cells left in place - the school's old classrooms had been blocked off with bricks or wooden panelling to create corridors of individual cells, just long and wide enough for a single prisoner to lie or sit down.  Claustrophobic beyond measure and hard to imagine that this was in use only 40 years ago.

For me though, one of the most unsettling parts of the visit came at the very end when we were told that two of the seven survivors of S21 were outside in the courtyard selling their books to the passing tourists.  Some of our group were keen to meet them and buy the books but I couldn't bring myself to.  What can you say to someone, knowing they've suffered atrocities in the very spot you've just been visiting as a well-meaning but still gawking tourist?  It had, for me, an element of the freak show about it and a large part of me wished that these men, who'd suffered so horribly, could have found another way to support themselves that didn't involve revisiting the very place that had scarred them, mentally and physically, every day.

With S21 behind us, you might have thought that we would have sought out something lighter for the afternoon but no, we were determined to pile misery on misery and set off to find the notorious Killing Fields.  Named the Killing Fields by the Cambodian journalist Dith Pran after he'd successfully escaped the regime, there were many of these execution zones littered across Cambodia.  The one at Choeung Ek has become the most famous, thanks in part to its connection with S21 and also in part to the memorial park that is now based there.  The atrocities that took place there are as hard to imagine as they were in S21 - the park is a lush, beautiful place with a striking Buddhist stupa and gently rolling fields.  But when you look closer you realise those rolling fields are not landscaped features, but mass graves that have been excavated and left open.  These mass graves, opened in 1980, contained the remains of over 8900 people.  Some 43 of the 129 graves still remain untouched today but it is estimated that 17000 people met their ends here.  Many of those who died were bludgeoned to death as the Khmer Rouge didn't want to waste money on expensive bullets.  All these facts are horrific statistics that are hard to digest and fully understand.  But the truth is quite literally at your feet - heavy rain often washes bone and clothing fragments to the surface and you find yourself stepping delicately round items that are buried just too deep to be removed carefully by the park wardens. 

There are many more chilling things to be seen and dwelt upon at Choeung Ek but I'm trying not to make this blog too bleak.  It was only later that day that I read, quite by chance, that it was Holocaust Memorial Day, a day designed to give people pause for thought about the many counts of genocide that have taken place around the world.  The horrors of Cambodia's past are still in very recent living memory, as are those from Serbia and Croatia, Rwanda and the Sudan.  All of us had certainly found a lot of mull over in Phnom Penh and all of us dealt with the emotional rigours of the day in different ways.  For me, though gruelling, it was a vital part of my trip to Cambodia - to not visit would have been to ignore not only the scars which are still healing in the country but also the personal experiences of those we met, including our tour leader Sam, whose own mother died of starvation during the regime, and our guide for the day, who was forced to hide in tunnels and live on insects as a young child. 

But there is hope in Cambodia - Phnom Penh is a thriving city that throngs with tourists, both local and international, and the increased access to popular tourist sites such as the Angkor temple complex is bringing much needed money to the region.  The people are unfailingly friendly and curious and while there is still some political uneasiness, the darker days have been left behind.

Still to come: a chance to eat tarantulas and a night a rural homestay.

Photos below: Phnom Penh's glowing memorial to Cambodia's late king; S21 detention centre;
an S21 cell; the sign says it all at the Killing Fields.

Searching for Saigon

I have to confess that my very basic understanding of Vietnamese history and culture, amongst many other things in life, mostly stems from the movies. Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Deer Hunter, Good Morning Vietnam. Some additional information was contributed by musical theatre in the form of Miss Saigon, a show I was obsessed with as a young teen and can still hum several tunes from. So my mental picture of Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as it was known until 1976 went something along the lines of - boondocks, tanks, wicker hatted women on bicycles, wooden huts on stilts, young women selling themselves in the bars and helicopters on roof tops. And of course modern Saigon, as it is still known to most of its residents, bears absolutely no resemblance to that fictional mental image at all. Something of a disappointment.

And something of a culture shock after the serenity of Hoi An as we were suddenly thrown back into the heart-stopping, life-endangering vehicle mayhem remembered from Hanoi, but this time on bigger streets with even more scooters. Sam emphasised the need for care when out on the streets - not only did the scooters pose a physical threat to our health, but also to our possessions as motorbike bag-snatching was apparently a common occurrence. Only the day before another Intrepid grouper had fallen foul of a snatcher and had broken her shoulder bone when pulled unceremoniously to the ground. Such dire warnings left some of us in need of pastries so we took air-conditioned refuge in a local bakery (the Indochinese nations do a fine line in fancy baking) before braving the streets and heading to Saigon's Ben Thanh market for some more retail therapy.

Much like Bangkok's Chatuchuk market, Ben Thanh is a covered warren of narrow alleys between the multitudinous stalls selling shoes, clothes, toys, knick knacks and food. But added to the disorientating mix of new smells, extreme heat and general shopping bewilderment was a new dose of aggressive selling. As soon as we plunged into a row of clothes stalls the local owners were grabbing at our arms and chanting 'you like? How many you buy?' when you hadn't shown any interest in their wares at all. Bewildering and amusing in equal measure, we soon got into the swing of things and before long I'd bought a pair of fake Converse shoes, the Ginger Broad had bought a fake Kipling bag and Sergio, our group's haggling demon, was laiden down with several new purchases. Shopping for fake goods in these countries becomes something of an addiction - I am now the proud owner of, besides the fake Converse, some fake Haviana flip flops, fake Fitflop shoes, fake Dolce and Gabbana sunglasses and a fake Longchamp bag. Back in London surely I'll be the only one who knows the truth??

But before we could commit too much commercial theft we were whisked off on our first cyclo tour. For those unaware of this strange form of transportation, try and picture a pushbike with a large chair strapped over the front wheel for the passenger. It's sort of being like ET riding on Eliot's bike except a lot more exposed and less safe (and you can't fly dammit). Unlike on tuk tuks or cycle rickshaws the passenger has nothing around him for protection, rather as you're on the front of the bike it's you that goes first into the traffic. Maybe not so much of a problem in quiet little towns like Hoi An but on the manic streets of Saigon the whole escapade feels suicidal. Drivers in Saigon seem to share the same sixth sense as their counterparts in Hanoi but being wheeled head first into a four lane junction thronging with a never-ending stream of cars and bikes left us all with our hearts in our mouths. There was the added 'thrill' that we'd been warned cyclo passengers were often targeted by snatch thieves as the tourists were usually distracted enough by the sites to be easy prey. So we all set off clutching our cameras with steely grips and I didn't mention that I'd heard that a year ago a poor tourist had been pulled from her cyclo and to her death under the wheels of a bus when she refused to release her bag to a thief.

As if thoughts of dying a hideous death entangled in a metallic sandwich wasn't enough, first stop on our tour was the city's War Remnants Museum. A slightly one sided account of the Vietnam War is, inevitably, housed within with much of the focus on the aftermath of the war on the civilians left behind to count the cost. There are some horrifying and gruesome photographs of victims on both sides of the conflict with the gallery detailing the American use of defoliants (Agent Orange etc) cataloging a depressing array of genetic defects that have been passed through the generations since the war ended. Sadly, as we only had one hour in the museum, I had to do a speed scan of the final gallery which looked at the American and international photojournalism that covered the war and included some striking images of man's ability to treat others with contempt.

Whisked off on our cyclos we also visited the Reunification Palace, previously known as the Presidential and then Independence Palace. The original colonial mansion was damaged and then pulled down in 1962 with it's concrete replacement looking like a 60s era tax office or town hall. But it is still widely revered by the Vietnamese as a symbol of the fall of Saigon and defeat of the South. Two tanks from the Northern Army still stand in the grounds - a testament to the day in 1975 that they stormed the gates and took the city. More death-defying cyclo transportation and we were at Saigon's version of Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral and the city's General Post Office. Now postal establishments are not normally on my list of 'must sees' when travelling but this cavernous 19th century construction provided political controversy and telecom related amusement. Sam (a Cambodian by birth) had told us to look out for the large mural map of the region on the wall and find the spot where Cambodge (the French name for Cambodia) had been painted out. Apparently still something of an annoyance with the Cambodians, Saigon and its environs had once belonged to them and not Vietnam. National boundaries aside, the Post Office still housed two walls of wooden phone cabinets where, before the advance of mobile phones, locals had come to make their calls. A little romantic nostalgia possessed us all - cue 10 mins of pretending we were back in 1920s Saigon (although with a sadly 60s looking phone clamped to our ears).

History was also on our minds the following day when some of us took an optional trip out to the notorious Cu Chi tunnels. Not everyone in our group wanted such a close encounter with the grittier side of war, but those who did were accompanied by the elderly but irrepressibly perky Charlie. Now as Charlie was a 50 plus Vietnamese gentlemen that was clearly not his given name but you couldn't help wondering if this ex-Vietnamese Army member was being intentionally ironic with his choice of nickname. At least he wasn't called 'gook' or any of the other derogatory US nicknames for the Vietnam Cong. (On a side bar, the full name of our tour guide Sam is actually Sambo. Which means 'rich' in Cambodian. He accepts that it has much worse connotations for the British and American travellers and has kindly allowed it to be shortened to save us from embarrassment).

Back at the tunnels genial Charlie was giving us some background. Cu Chi was once a rubber plantation owned by a French tyre company and the first tunnels were dug way back in the 40s to hide anti-colonial weapons and fighters. The Viet Cong, many of them local villagers, adopted them for similar use and expanded them to over 250km of underground passages by 1965. Complex and ingenious the tunnels were a vast warren of communication lines with underground latrines, dorms, meeting rooms and even hospitals. But the living conditions were atrocious and claustrophobic with tunnels often no bigger than 80cm high or wide and pitch black inside. Hatches out of the tunnels were hidden all over the area so the VC could pop out unexpectedly to confront the disoriented enemy. These hatches still exist and are tiny. There was no way my child-bearing hips (with extra padding) were going to squeeze into one of those but two of the other girls managed with only a vague look of panic as their feet tried to take purchase on the ledge below.

Beside the hatches Charlie also demonstrated the booby traps that the VC littered throughout the area. Each was a hideously imaginative way to impale your enemy on some nasty looking spikes. Some even had back-up plans - if you managed to stop the spikes swinging down and hitting your chest, the hinged lower part would just swing up and hit you in the groin. Pretty deadly, and very gruesome, but you have to admit a sneaking admiration for the ingenuity of it all. No wonder young lads,used to the city streets of the US, died in their thousands in the impenetrable, confusing, unfamiliar jungles of Vietnam.

Sections of the remaining tunnels themselves have now been partly widened to allow for the fuller figure of the average Westerner but as Charlie invited us to go down and explore he warned that they were not for the claustrophobes among us. Andrea, an athletic ex-stunt woman from New Zealand, and I thought we'd take a look and suss out whether we wanted to 'do them' or not. But before we'd had a chance to think 'will we, won't we' we were crawling/crouching our way through a tunnel that was partly lit and emerging some way from the rest of the group who were still waiting for us to pop back up where we'd started. Reassuring the others that it was 'easy', we persuaded them to try a different tunnel, only to find when we got below ground ourselves that this was a different experience - crawling all the way on your hands and knees with the only light coming from a small torch and the light from my camera flash. Ten minutes underground like that was enough for me - with some group camaraderie lightening the mood - but I wouldn't have survived ten seconds in the 'real thing'. The sheer desperation that must have driven men, women and children to consider such an existence. Horrifying and humbling in equal measure.

Something a little more positive in tone was needed from Ho Chi Minh City and we found it in A visit to the Pagoda of the Jade Emperor. Built by the Cantonese at the beginning of the 20th century, the Pagoda is a riotous mix of Buddhism and Taoist gods, wooden carvings, elaborate doors and gates, all heady with the scent of incense. Still very much an active temple, as so many of those visited in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam are, there were worshippers presenting offerings and praying as we moved around snapping photos. At such times I often feel I'm intruding on private moments but no-one really took much notice of us nosy tourists except for the bloke peddling feed to throw to the many turtles and terrapins that floated (not all of them alive) in the pagoda's grubby pond.

And that was the end of our flying visit to Saigon and, indeed, Vietnam. The next day we'd be crossing the border into our third and final country, Cambodia. I confess that so far in the trip Vietnam has perhaps been the biggest disappointment - we've seen little of the countryside, of the paddy fields and rural life, of the more remote regions and the city's have only been glimpsed in part. Perhaps that just means it is ripe for a return visit?

Next - confusion at Cambodia's border and putting your snotty nose and sore throat into perspective at the Killing Fields.

Photos below: Cyclo virgin; Notre Dame de Saigon; Ben Thanh market; Nicola joins the Viet Cong; emerging from the Cu Ch tunnels; at the Jade Emperor Pagoda.

A Haven in Heavenly Hoi An

So I arrived in Hoi An fully prepared to loathe the place for its hectic commercialism and fully expecting to find nothing other than garish 70s throwback architecture. The location of our hotel didn't do much to reassure me, surrounded by scooter hire shops, laundries and mini marts. It was with something of a heavy heart that I joined the group to follow Sam on a brief walking tour of the town. But after about 10 minutes something began to change - the scooter shops and convenience stores faded away as the streets widened and became lined with yellow painted shopfront houses with mossy tiled roofs. Suddenly we were both miles and years away from the modern Vietnam that had so far confronted us. This town, dating back to the 16th Century and influenced by the Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and European cultures that had taken up residence, was now a UNESCO World Heritage site and it's sense of serenity was helped immeasurably by local laws restricting the use of motorbikes on its central streets.

With my preconceptions exploding all around me I realised I was falling in love with this little town. It might be packed to the gunnels with shops, bars and restaurants aimed at tourists but it felt aged and graceful in the same way that some of my favourite towns in Italy do. Maybe that was why I liked it so much, it felt like a little slice of renaissance Italy in the middle of Vietnam. I always knew i'd been born in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were soon set free to explore and I spent my time contentedly wandering the little labyrinth of interconnecting streets and tiny alleyways, snapping away with my camera and browsing in the many shops whenever I saw anything that caught me eye. The bustling shops were jammed with clothes, jewellery, carvings, paintings, pashminas and hand made lanterns - anything you could possible want as a souvenir or a gift. Hours could easily be spent poring over all the goodies on offer but knowing that we had three nights here, I soon found myself champing at the bit to do something other than shop.

So while many of the others headed to the nearby beach the following day, I was back in the old town with a mission to explore some more, seeking out the traditional local market, the Thu Bon river at the heart of the town and the many ancient houses and communal halls that lined the streets. The market lined the streets nearest the river and was populated by elderly women, squatted on low stools at the edge of the pavement with their goods, mostly fruit and vegetables, spread out on mats before them. It's a phenomenon that I'd noted in many other towns we'd visited that markets here often seem jammed with rows of stalls selling identical fare and Hoi An was no different. Every wicker behatted woman seemed to be selling the same dragon fruit and mangoes which wouldn't seem to be an advisable business strategy and yet they all appeared to have customers. Maybe they are on some sort of roster system? The market, the women and their goods were a great source of photographic material even if I'm still a bit nervous of offending people by snapping them without permission. The traders were nonchalant though and when spotted taking a sneaky snap I was usually rewarded with a wry smile as if to say 'whatever floats your boat darling'.

Some of the town's old shophouses had been saved from conversion to tourist stores and preserved in their original condition. These aged merchant houses, built when the Thu Bon river was a bustling thoroughfare for the transportation of goods, are similar to others found in Vietnam's older quarters. There's space for a small shop at the front, an open courtyard in the centre and more space at the back, opening directly onto the river where merchandise could be brought in through the back door. The interiors are darkened by the hardwood walls with one that I visited, the Tan Ky house, having the timber of the Jackfruit tree in its columns. These columns are exquisitely inlaid with mother of pearl Chinese letters, which when examined closely, are not just blank letters but formed from the shapes of different birds. The artistic attention to detail is stunning, even if the chance to admire it for long is stymied by the guide's brusque orders to move on to make room for the next swathe of tourists.

Besides the shophouses, Hoi An also boasts a beautiful Japanese covered bridge, a small but perfectly formed arch of red painted wood, with a little temple to the Taoist god known as the 'Emperor of the North', who controlled the wind and rain so was a particular favourite of the local sailors. There are also several Chinese assembly halls, used by the Chinese-born traders who took up residence to organise themselves according to their place of origin and provide a place to worship and meet. The most extravagant of these is the Cantonese Hall, with a huge water feature starring a large painted dragon pouring water, rather than fire, out of his nostrils straight into the mouth of a waiting, gaping carp. All a bit unhygienic if you ask me. I also loved the large red spinal cones of incense that hung from the ceiling, their lit ends sending wafts of perfumed air into the temple's interior.

By night Hoi An was even more entrancing. As well as the local by-laws stopping motorbikes cutting up the streets another forced all businesses to hang lanterns outside their properties. At night as the coloured lanterns lit up the shadowy streets it seemed like Hoi An was permanently in carnival mood. By the river young girls sold coloured paper boats to tourists - each boat held a small candle and was carefully lowered onto the water, sent on its way with a gentle prod and accompanied by a whispered wish. The river was soon awash with bobbing, multicoloured lights offering only a small hint as to what Hoi An would be like during its monthly Full Moon festival when the town centre closes entirely to traffic and every lantern in town is lit.

But don't be fooled by all my cultural ramblings. I was not immune to the lure of the shops or, indeed, Hoi An's speciality, speedy made to measure tailoring. Every street featured several tailors' shops, each promising to make any item of clothing, from a sample, photo or drawing, to your personal measurements and usually within 24 to 48 hours. I originally had no plans to venture inside but when I joined some of the group who were better prepared I soon found myself drawing pictures of my favourite style of top and picking out some fabric for them. Over the next two days I went back for fittings until I was the proud owner of two custom made tops and a sneaky pair of trousers. (The latter unfortunately fell foul of the inexpert laundry service of a Cambodian hotel and were reduced to doll size. Shame as they were the most comfortable trousers I'd ever owned!).

Our visit to Hoi An also coincided with the only birthday during our trip, that of the lovely Marie, a retired nurse from Australia who was travelling with her husband, Bob. The group duplicitly pretended to have no inkling that it was her birthday all day so it was something of a surprise when a heart shaped starter turned up for her during our evening meal. Accompanied with a big bunch of flowers. And a bottle of Aussie champagne. And a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday. I think she was genuinely shocked and pleased (see the photographic evidence below) so kudos to Sam for the organisation. And to us, who managed to take a French girl shopping for champagne and still came home with Oz fizz.

A quick side note on some of the food I sampled in Hoi An. Particularly nice were the 'white rose dumplings' or Banh bao which are steamed manioc-flour parcels of shrimp with lemon and sugar and a sprinkling of crunchy onion flakes on top. The name comes from the petal shape of the wraps and they are delicate and light and packed with flavour. Also highly recommended is cao lau - noodles in a light broth flavoured with star anise and topped with pork slices and pork rind croutons. Delicious. I always find it difficult to eat at lunchtime in a very hot climate but I more than make up for it at dinner time.

So it was with some reluctance that we were dragged away from Hoi An for our flight to Ho Chi Minh City, or as it's much better known, Saigon.

Return later for more tales of scary bike trips and scary tunnel crawls.

Photos below: Lantern shop in Hoi An; market trader in Hoi An; fruit on the move in Hoi An; Hoi An shop front; Marie's birthday surprise; Hoi An's Japanese covered bridge.

From Hue (pronounced Hway) to Hoi An (pronounced shopping)

This blog is embarrassingly behind the times. I'm writing this from the comfort of a beachside bar in Koh Lanta with my completed month tour done and dusted. But I left you last as we boarded the overnight train from Hanoi to Hue in Vietnam, on only day 15 of the trip, so I shall transport you back there and try to fill in the gaps.

This time Sam told us we'd be in first class rather than second but warned us the train wasn't as smart or as safe as our last one. In fact he gave us rather detailed instructions about making sure our door was locked during the night and waking someone up to ensure it was locked behind you if you needed the loo during the night. That reassured us all entirely! We'd had to draw lots for our berths on this train, although Sam kindly allowed married Bob and Marie to share a cabin. The rest of us took our chances and I found myself sharing with Sergio, Andrea and Liz. With Ros, Caroline, Jamilla and Andrea squirrelled away right next door I was thoroughly expecting the carriage to be party central. But I wasn't prepared for the travel sickness that kicked in after only 20 mins on the train. I've only once felt travel sick in my life - when I took a plane journey over the Nasca lines in Peru where the four seater plane corkscrewed around for over an hour so everyone could see everything - and long train journeys are one of my pleasures in life. So to find myself turning green and forced to stand near the open window gulping for air was a bit of a shock. It also meant I didn't get to share the Hanoi Vodka, or Vietnamese rice whiskey, that I'd bought Sam as a gift. Instead it was early doors for me - crawling into my berth as darkness fell, fully expecting a night of zero sleep.

And that's exactly what I got - thrown around on my bed by a very bumpy and noisy train, there was no sleep for this little traveller and it was with immense relief that we finally reached our next destination, Hue. Hue had been the capital of Vietnam for nearly 150 years, ending in 1945, and still has a rather imposing air of grandeur, partly thanks to the impressive citadel walls that still surround and protect it's old town. Built in the early 1800s, this old town was once the Vietnamese equivalent of the Chinese 'Forbidden City', an Imperial world behind high walls with the royal palaces of the Forbidden Purple City at it's heart. Our local guide reliably informed us that nearly 90% of these regal and political buildings were destroyed by the local population in order to stop the French imperialists taking them back after the end of the Vietnam War. My Rough Guide book on the area suggests the city's destruction wasn't really the result of such self-sacrificing bravery but the disastrous effect of the massive fire power unleashed by the Americans on the North Vietnamese Army, who had holed up in the city. As we are constantly finding, Vietnamese history is a complicated affair - often obfuscated by political tensions, local loyalties and an accepted rewriting of the true facts.

Either way, the remainders of the Imperial City which we explored that afternoon were impressive enough to mourn the loss of the splendour that must have existed before. Unfortunately our guide wasn't that forthcoming with much in the way of historical detail but it was easy to see why what remained of the city had been deemed a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993 and why it now was getting some help in its restoration efforts. To list the different rooms, halls, courtyards and passage ways we walked through would be of no help or interest but it is easy to imagine that the servants who scurried along its hallways from one part to the next must have been super fit to cover so much ground every day.

After the Imperial City it was time for the Thien Mu Pagoda, or the 'Pagoda of the Celestial Lady'. As always, the building of such temples are shrouded in myth. According to this one, a Lord who left Hanoi to govern the southern Vietnamese territories met an elderly woman who told him to walk with a burning incense stick until it stopped burning. At the point it stopped, he should build his city. The city of Hue was the result. The Lord erected the pagoda at the site where he met the old lady, someone he felt must have been a messenger from the gods. In later years the Pagoda and its temples became the centre of Buddhist resistance to French colonialism and we were taken to see the car of a monk who had, in 1963, driven it to Saigon before burning himself to death in protest at the excesses of the regime then in power. The photograph of his self-sacrifice became internationally famous and is also on rather sobering display.

Despite Sam's warnings that a trip on Hue's Perfume River would just lead to an onslaught of people trying to sell us things, the group decided it wanted the trip anyway, if only to see if the dire warnings were true and if the river lived up to its aromatic name. Fortunately and unfortunately, neither was actually true, so although the trip left us unhassled it also left us rather bored. There wasn't much to see and the river certainly wasn't perfumed, at least not in any pleasant way.

The valley of Hue's Perfume River is also home to a series of royal mausoleums, planned in immaculate detail by the monarchs themselves during their own lifetimes, with the intention that they'd be palaces for their after lives. We only had time to visit one and settled upon that of Tu Duc, the longest ruler of the Nguyen Empire and something of a romantic poet. It's easy to see the poetic imagination at work in the design of the lily covered pond, stilted wooden boating pavilion, royal theatre and series of courtyards full of statues and crumbling gateways. Crumbling is the best description of the whole place - despite the royal wish to be prayed for and remembered after death, the mausoleum has fallen into poetic disrepair. Beautiful and haunting in its deteriorated state and a peaceful pause in our increasingly frantic sight-seeing.

We were only in Hue for the one day so headed out to an evening meal of local culinary specialities. It should be said that dining out in Vietnam, and the other Indochina countries, can be a rather odd experience. The best food isn't always served in the fanciest restaurants. In fact some of the tastiest dishes are sold by street traders, parked with their grills and pans at the edge of the pavement with customers grabbing a kindergarten sized chair and chowing down on the street as well. Even 'proper' restaurants can look less than salubrious - more kindergarten chairs, piles of boxes and the sort of wipe down vinyl tablecloths you get in nursery. That was exactly the sort of place Sam recommended to us for Hue local delicacies. I opted for the Banh khoai - a crispy rice pancake with pork filling that you broke into pieces then added to a bowl along with star fruit, green banana, lettuce before dousing with a peanut and sesame sauce. Delicious - one of my favourite experiments in Vietnamese food so far. Besides the good food, the restaurant was fascinating itself. It was owned and run by a family of deaf mutes who communicated with each other by sign language. The main guy was a real showman - opening beer bottles with his own patent gadget (wood and a nail) and using charts to tell us how 7 of his 8 siblings were also born deaf and mute while all of their children were fully hearing. It might not have been the classiest of places but it had heart and was a nice taste of local life.

Leaving Hue behind us our bus headed towards a three night stay in Hoi An. Our itinerary simply said that we would have 'time to relax and explore in between all the tailors fitting'. A description that didn't do much to get me excited. In fact this was the part of the trip I had been least looking forward to - I'm not much of a shopper and I didn't have any clothes I wanted made. Three nights in this cultural wasteland was going to be an ordeal I thought. But I couldn't have been more wrong. Find out why in the next exciting instalment.

Photos below: Hue's crumbling Imperial City; Tu Duc's boating pavilion; Tu Duc's stone noblemen; Banh khoai.