Across our bed our room maid had laid out the words “Happy Anniversary” in flower petals. And in the bathroom the bath had been partially filled with water while the surface of the water was covered in rose petals. A kind thought which we appreciated.
The next morning we were up bright and early and left the hotel at 8 a.m. to visit the Mekong Delta. The bus journey took just under two hours before we pulled up at a dockside and transferred to a boat which set off down the Mekong, past fish farms and small boats bustling up and down. After a while we turned into a smaller channel and cruised on through the forest until we arrived at a small wooden dock where we disembarked and followed a trail that brought us to a small farm where we had a chance to see what kind of crops were being grown. The Mekong Delta is a fertile area and grows a lot of fruit and vegetables for the rest of Vietnam. We also saw cocoa beans laid out to dry, soon to become chocolate for the rest of the world.
We walked from this farm through the forest again until we arrived at another farm where we were each presented with a green coconut, topped and tailed so we could drink that refreshing liquid – and was it welcome after the steamy heat of the jungle. Another walk brought us to a village where we were able to board horse drawn carts to be driven to a larger farm where we were entertained by some local singers and dancers, as well as being offered plates of the different fruits grown on the farm. I also tried the local firewater, called Mekong Whisky, which would have been better used as paint stripper as one mouthful was enough for me and I discreetly disposed of the rest of the glassful behind me. One of the farmers had captured a python which he offered to drape round our necks for a picture. I didn’t at all fancy a python round my neck so I quickly declined, and so did everybody else.
Another boat, another channel, brought us to the main channel where our boat was waiting for us, but first we entered a farmhouse where coconut candy was being prepared for sale. As the candy consisted mostly of palm sugar I tried one piece but had to refuse offers of other flavours as I suspected my BS was higher than usual.
We cruised back to our original dock where our bus was waiting to take us back to our hotel.
The next day, Sunday, we were due to leave Vietnam for Phnom Penh in the afternoon but we were offered an optional tour that morning of the Cu Chi tunnels, dug out by the Viet Cong which allowed them to carry on operations under the noses of the Americans just outside Saigon.
It was a comparatively short bus ride to the tunnels and we began a conducted tour from the entrance. First stop was a film giving the history of the war, but we found it pretty distasteful, with its stories of 12 year old girls being given medals for killing 15 Americans, etc. We left before the film was finished. Even though I grew up in London during the Blitz, I cannot remember this kind of attitude being encouraged among us schoolkids.
However, putting that behind us we moved on to the area of forest where the entrances and exits to the tunnels were. Entrances were tiny, even bearing in mind that Vietnamese are small, slender people, but the smallness was deliberate to make them next to impossible to find. They had also dug out tiny outlets for the smoke from the underground cooking fires. These 3 inch tubes dug through the soil served as smoke dispersers while another network were used as ventilators. The outlets were often hundreds of yards from the area where the guerrillas were living. The Viet Cong’s diet was simple to the point of boredom, consisting of tapioca root, boiled. We were served some as a taster and the best description I can give of the taste is of roasted chestnuts without the crispy bits. It was nothing at all like the “frogspawn” we used to be served as dessert at school.
Another display showed the variety of home-made booby traps the Viet Cong devised, often little more than stakes smeared with faesces to make sure that even the slightest scratch would prove to be fatal. They were horrific and proved that this was truly a war from which no one emerged with credit.
Late in the afternoon we were driven to the airport for our short flight to Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. As we waited for our flight it began to rain heavily, then we began to get thunder and lightning. This died down shortly before we boarded our flight, which turned out to be a twin-engined turbo prop. We took off and before we had reached cruising height we found ourselves in the middle of the storm. Thunder banged, lightning flashed all around us and the plane bounced around the sky like a tennis ball. What I wouldn’t have given for a stiff whisky at that point, but the way we were being thrown around, even a glass of water was out of the question.
Luckily, we climbed up and up until we were above the storm and the flight became much smoother and stayed like that all the way to Phnom Penh. A bus was waiting to take our group to the hotel, the Sunway, which turned out to be a great choice.
As soon as we arrived we were ushered into the dining room where a buffet was awaiting us, with great choices of western and Asian dishes as well as desserts and fruit. The staff were charming and helpful and we felt we had tasted a little bit of paradise.
After dinner we went up to our room to find our luggage had been delivered and all we had to do was get our pyjamas and toilet bag out before falling into bed.
The breakfast buffet was just as good, and I chose fried eggs, bacon and mushrooms as a low carb start to the day.
We checked out of the hotel and we had liked the robes we found in the room so much that we bought one each - $18 each, and excellent value for money. We had a sightseeing tour of Phnom Penh today, visiting the Royal Palace first. I found this quite unbelievable – a communist monarchy. It sounds like an oxymoron, I know, but it seems to work.
The Royal Palace was quite spectacular with immaculate gardens and we found it fascinating. This was followed by a visit to the Silver Pagoda, which is part of the Royal Palace complex. There is a lot of silver in the Silver Pagoda – hence its name. There are silver statues of Buddha, silver tiles on the floor. Buddhism is a complex faith which varies in some respects from country to country, hence the significance of the Silver Temple is somewhat opaque
We followed this by a visit to the National Museum which gave us an insight into the history of the Khmer people.
We experienced the saddest part of our whole trip while we were in Phnom Penh. We drove out to the killing fields where the murderous regime established by the monstrous Pol Pot set about killing everybody their communist party saw as a threat or simply not suitable for their programme of turning Cambodia into an extreme Marxist state. Men, women, children were all grist to the mill of the bloodthirsty murderers of the communist party. Intellectuals were particularly hated, to such an extent that just wearing glasses was enough to warrant a death sentence. Teachers were prime targets, as were journalists, lawyers and eventually the death sentence was extended to virtually everyone. Victims were sometimes shot, but it was found cheaper to club their victims to death. Children and babies were swung headfirst into a tree. The whole area was covered in open pits which had been mass graves but were now opened up and the bodies given decent burials. Wandering around the visitor can come across bones or teeth that have worked their way to the surface after rain. A tower has been built as a memorial to the victims, a tower containing thousands of skulls of unknown people. Their only identification is “female, late 20s”, “child approx. 13” and on and on and on. Thousands of skulls are placed in this memorial – most of them of unknown people.
We later took a flight to Siem Reap in northern Cambodia and checked into our hotel the Tara Angkor where we were due to stay for three nights – another chance to get some laundry done and to unpack completely.
Siem Reap is basically Hindu temple after Hindu Temple. Our first stop next morning was the Angkor National Museum to give us an orientation of the area and its history. We followed this with visits to Ta Prohm Temple, Angkor Thom, Bayon, Phimeanakas, the Elephant Terrace and the Terrace of the Leper King. All of them were interesting in their own way, but I began to get a bit irritable as our local guide was extremely knowledgeable but he did go on and on while we stood there in the blistering heat and humidity. We would arrive at a temple, gather round the guide and he would start on its history from the moment the first stone was laid. Other groups would arrive, get a short briefing and then go on in. Not us. We would stand there, sweat dripping off us, while groups who had arrived after us would enter, do their tour and exit while our guide still went chuntering on.
Next morning we went to visit two small but beautiful temples, Banteay Srei and Banteay Samre. Each time we stood outside while our guide droned on before we could go inside. These two small shrines were really beautiful and I had a great time shooting away. As we left I was stopped by a policeman. “What have I done?” I wondered to myself, but it turned out that he wanted to sell me his badge.
I mentioned to our tour manager that our guide was taking too long in explaining every jot and tittle. Was there any way, I asked, that he could be persuaded to abbreviate his commentaries? After all, I reasoned, none of us will remember the details he was giving us, so just an outline of the history would be fine. She must have had a word with him, because he did shorten his talks and later on apologised if he had gone on too long. He had an immense knowledge of the temples and their histories, but he just overdid it.
After lunch we headed for the highlight of our Cambodian segment – a visit to the fabled Angkor Wat temple. We went later in the afternoon so we could be there to catch it at sunset. If you have seen anything of Angkor Wat on TV in any of the many documentaries made about it, you will have some idea of its size and its sheer majesty. It was built as a Hindu temple but was taken over by Buddhists and served as a Buddhist temple. No artefacts from daily life have ever been found here so it’s pretty clear that it served solely as a temple and was never lived in. It’s immense and you can wander from courtyard to inner temple to open-sided corridors. There was an enormous number of carvings, virtually every surface being covered.
It was just as hot and humid but somehow it didn’t seem to be so exhausting as on previous days.As we left the temple we gathered on the far side of the lake in front of the facade to watch the rays of the setting sun catch the towers. A truly magnificent spectacle.
Later, we had a dinner/show evening with local dances and music. Very similar to Thai dance forms, with many of the same characters appearing.
The next day we were free until our flight home for which we had to leave the hotel at 7 p.m. We relaxed in our room, downloading our photos and Photoshopping where necessary. We had our room until 2 p.m. and put our bags outside our room to be collected by the bell boys.
When we got to the airport we asked if our bags could be checked all the way through to Luxembourg. The check in man said that was possible and promptly started printing out our boarding cards all the way through as well.
Our first flight was from Siem Riep to Bangkok where we said goodbye to our travelling companions and our tour manager. In Bangkok we changed to a BA overnight flight to Heathrow, which went smoothly and arrived dead on the dot. We had several hours to kill before our short flight to Luxembourg. When we finally landed at our home airport we were ten minutes late and all our luggage turned up on the carousel. Hats off to the airlines who managed that feat after flying us halfway around the world.
Four days after our return I went for a blood test prior to an appointment with my endocrinologist. I was somewhat nervous about what it would be as I hadn’t had the kind of control over my diet that I have at home. Guess my surprise then when the results came back. My HbA1c was 5.7. I was over the moon.
I have written the above segment while in California, doing our house and cat sitting duties for our friends who are having a family reunion in Hawaii. I've left it too late now to wish everyone on the forum a Happy Christmas, but I do wish everybody a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year. All the very best.
