Sunday, March 29, 2009

The places of bad Internet connections

After spending a little too much time in Hoi An, we didn't have much time left for the south of Vietnam.
So again, we dared to take the "sleeping bus" to our next destination: Nha Trang. We only stayed here for one day and one night. This day we wanted to take a cable cart to see as much as possible. What we didn't know was what on the other side of the cable cart there was an amusement park, a waterpark and an aquarium! So we spent the whole day in the park swimming, sliding, and looking at turtles, sharks and exotic fish.

Next day we got up early and took the bus to Mui Ne, a much smaller place with a relaxed atmosphere.
We probably should show you some pictures from the fairy stream and the red and white sand dunes we went too, but sadly the connections are so bad that it isn't possible. We been suffering from this for a long time now, hopefully when we get to Australia we will find a better connection and be able to upload lots of pictures.

After travelling for a while now in none wine countries we have started to like the Vietnamese Dalat wine, which we get for as low as 20 Kroner a bottle in the restaurants.(Looking forward to Australia though!)

Two days in Mui Ne, back on the bus to Ho Chi Minh just in time to get to the airport and our flight to Siem Reap (Cambodia).
The only purpose of the visit was to look at The Temples of Angkor Wat.
And boy'o'boy did we see some temples. First day, started at 9am. We wanted to get some consistence in our templewatching so we told the driver to take us to the oldest temples first. From 800-900 a.d. Our driver didn't really wanna go there since the temples was so small, but we convinced him. Compared to what we saw later, I guess they where, but they where still big great temples. So from here its temples and lunch and finally the sunset at the top of one temple, bit cloudy but still beautiful. and back at the hotel around 1830pm.

Yeah, you guessed right, that is a freakin long time to be walking up and down temples in 35 degrees and sun, sun, sun. So we decided that we should get an even earlier start the next day, by seeing the sunrise coming up behind the biggest religious building in the world, Angkor Wat.
5 am we left the hotel, groggy but ready to be stunned. It was picture perfect, except all the flies and mosquito's before the sun was up. We had a break after this to eat some breakfast and Hilde slept a few hours. And out we went again, and another sunset we saw, and whole bunch of more temples.

This evening we decided to eat at Deadfish Tower, who guarantee they don't serve, cat,dog,rat, and some other creepy things. After 10 min. Lisa and Steve which we last seen in Hoi an comes walking by. Small World, Big Temples.....

Siem Reap was very touristy, with many 5 star hotels and such, but still there are lots of problems for the locals still trying to get back after the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot massacre.
There are lots of landmine victims and orphans, and you feel bad for them. But you just cant help them all. And sadly after a while you get tired of the feeling that everyone regards you as a walking talking ATM. F.eks. This one little girl followed us on our way home one evening, and she was maybe 6 years old, pointing to her stomach and saying she was hungry. With a sad voice saying she wanted money. We decided that we should buy her something to eat at a store since she wouldn't let go of Hilde. When we came out she latched on to Hilde again, and started the same beg routine, Jorgen tried to give her chocolate and something else, but now she only wanted money. When she finally realized we wouldn't give her money, she let Hilde go while she pinched her hard. Not taking the chocolate she was offered. So clearly not everyone are so bad off as they pretend. But they keep begging for money cause its an easy way of making money.
Its sad :'( ( just to clarify, we gave money to landmine victims and schools and such where we knew it went too a real organisation.)

We are in Gili Islands outside Bali now, but that's for the next blog, this keyboards is so hard to type at, its killing my fingers.

Soon we will be better at updating and putting in loads of photos, hopefully.

Cheers!

3 comments:

  1. Cheers!

    Tiggere er noe som får meg til å ikke ville reise til slike steder. Den konstante dårlige samvittigheten kan gjøre meg gal, og ødelegger idyllen eller selve opplevelsen. Selv når jeg skriver dette, får jeg dårlig samvittighet for at jeg kan tenke slik i det hele tatt. opplevde mye av det samme i india, og det er som dere sier, man kan ikke hjelpe alle.

    Håper dere er glad i templer....

    Kos dere på Bali!

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  2. Høres ut som dere har det veldig bra, men skjønner godt den dårlige samvittigheten ja. Man får vel til slutt nok av det også, men etter å ha sett Slumdog Millionaire i påsken så får man jo vondt bare av å tenke på dem... Men man kan ikke hjelpe alle, nei. Greit å gi der man ser pengene gjør nytte for seg da!

    Her har endelig våren kommet, og vi har kost oss på Tjøme med sol og hvitveis. Snøen er faktisk snaaart borte i hagen også, det hadde vi aldri trodd!

    Kos dere videre! Gleder oss til bilder :)

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  3. Skal bli artig å se flere av bildene deres litt senere på turen, skjønner internett-forbindelsene i Sørøst-Asia ikke er av de beste.

    Det var lang tempelvandring dere hadde i solsteiken i Kambodia, sikkert mye flott å se og fine soloppganger og Angkor Wat.

    Nå er det over to måneder siden dere reiste, tenk. Var nettopp og sjekka reiseruta deres, og da så jeg at dere antagelig nettopp er ankommer Sidney?!

    Lykke til på nytt kontinent!

    Hilsen M+P

    ReplyDelete

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