Cambodia

Cambodia! 

Resume du quatrieme episode asiatique:

Apres le Vietnam, me voici a Phnom Penh, capitale du Cambodge. Au programme, visite des champs d'execution ou les Khmers Rouges tuerent de nombreux civils, dans l'indifference internationale la plus totale, et explosion de noix de coco a la kalashnikov. Puis, direction Sihanoukville au sud, afin de prendre un bateau pour l'ile paradisiaque de Koh Rong. Une semaine de glandouille et bronzette sur cette ile avec Sam, Maaike et Ward, ainsi que beaucoup d'amis rencontres sur place mais egalement au Vietnam et Laos et retrouves par hasard. Puis la version cambodgienne de la full moon party, en plus petit, plus intimiste, et avec du tres gros son jusqu'au lendemain matin. Depart apres tres peu de sommeil pour Kampot, sur le continent, pour aller visiter les restes de batiments construits par les colons francais dans la premiere partie du 19e siecle. Un peu decu car un nouveau complexe immobilier est en train d'etre construit a la place, mais interessant quand meme. Puis Siem Reap et les temples d'Angkor pour finir en beaute.

From Saigon, we went straight to Phnom Penh, without even stopping in the Mekong Delta. That will be for another trip in South Vietnam! At that point, I was only traveling with Maaike and Ward, Sam had to wait to meet his parents who were arriving in Saigon two days later.

Surprisingly, Phnom Penh was much nicer than expected. Low rise buildings, a few beautiful modern ones, traditional palaces and temples, nice riverside restaurants and an impressive Art Deco central market I had heard about back in Paris. For a day or two, it is actually enjoyable, even when traveling on the cheap. The city seems to be growing quite fast, so it will be interesting to see how it evolves in the next decade.

 Temple considered as the heart and soul of Phnom Penh

Art Deco central market and modern skyscrapers, a nice architectural mix

One of the main reason we stayed overnight in Phnom Penh was not happy pizzas offered everywhere, but the sadly famous Killing Fields, where Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge executed every Cambodian they considered a threat. In short, their leader Pol Pot, educated in France, had decided to transform Cambodian society by launching an agrarian socialist revolution and wanted to develop an entirely self-sufficient state under control of the Angkar, the local communist party.

One of these killing fields has now been turned into a memorial, and visiting it helps you understand better how the Cambodian genocide happened, not even forty years ago. Its mind-blowing amplitude (maybe three million Cambodians died out of a population of eight) as well as the way it happened (the Khmer Rouge emptied most towns in less than three days and sent everyone back to villages in the countryside, forcing most into starvation). 

 In front of a mass grave

Like Nazis in their extermination camps, the Khmer Rouge thought about executions in a very cold and rational way. Bullets were scarce, so any tool could be turn into a rudimentary weapon, including razor-sharp palm tree leaves found on site. Forcing victims to knee in front of their own grave before killing them would save the effort of carrying corpses around.

 

The killing tree, used to smash babies head in front of their mother

This is not very surprising, after you hear some of Pol Pot's most famous quotes: "No gain in keeping, no loss in weeding out" " which could also be expressed in a blunter way, "Better to kill an innocent by mistake than to spare an enemy by mistake", or another one, "Hunger is the most effective disease"... But listening to all those truly horrible stories forces you to take a moment and think.

 Victims skulls

Having visited Saigon's war remnants museum two days earlier, I must say that you feel a bit depressed and pessimistic about human nature after facing such levels of atrocious violence. At the same time, it also makes you think about subordination and peer pressure, how people execute orders without questioning them, how they can accept to kill others to save their own life. It is hard to realise that maybe, under the same circumstances, you could have done the same as those soldiers. There is so much evil within our own person...

The other depressing thought is that however hard we try to preserve those memories and learn from history, this can and probably will happen again. Who knows exactly the sufferances endured by civilians in Syria? People forced to move out of their houses, mothers not eating enough to feed their babies, murders, rapes, destruction, tears and constant fear... Will this ever stop? After having seen all this, honestly I don't think so.

Anyway, let me stop my depressive digression about human nature, this is a travel blog, not a philosophical one. 

Quite surprisingly, a shooting range has been set up ten minutes away from the killing fields, meaning that a typical half day trip around Phnom Penh could easily include visiting both places. Given that, I decided to try an AK-47, the only appropriate weapon to shoot with three months after Mikhail Kalashnikov death. I know this probably sounds extremely weird, but travelling requires a flexible mind, and you have to seize opportunities when they come to you! Shooting seems pretty popular in the region, you can find shooting ranges pretty much everywhere around touristic places in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia...

But our driver took us to another shooting range, more than an hour drive away, supposedly because the other one was used by the army at that time, but much more likely because the shooting range we ended up going to was run by one of his friends or relatives... Prices there were more expensive, and it clearly smelt like a tourist trap, but having done all that route with my two Dutch friends, I felt like now I really had to try... People there first show you a weapon "menu", where you can select your weapon of choice, ranging from shotguns to light rifles, heavy ones to hand grenade, guns to bazooka. I heard from a few people that for $350, you could go to a shooting range further away in the mountain and shoot a cow with a bazooka... Tourism for rednecks at its finest. 

After having (painfully) exploded a few coconuts, we went back to the city centre and headed to Cambodia national museum, mostly exposing Angkorian and pre-Angkorian statues (roughly speaking from the fifth to the sixteenth century CE), but got bored very quickly and visited the whole place in maybe twenty minutes. If you have not been properly introduced to that part of Cambodian history, it is a bit difficult to fully enjoy such a place. For a beginner, it can be challenging to appreciate differences between all those Buddha statues. Style remains overall simple across centuries, details on clothes and poses vary but are harder to notice, while materials also change across centuries. Just to clarify my point, I am not judging Cambodian historical artworks and would probably have exactly the same reaction going to a museum full of Greek or Egyptians statues. I am simply trying to describe how it felt in this museum, old statues are not my thing. A very different experience than going to a museum full of paintings for example, where cross-centuries comparison would probably be easier thanks to the abundance of details, but unfortunately, unlike Chinese or Japanese old paintings for instance, I have never heard about nor come across anything like that in Southeast Asia.

After this, and because our stupid driver had brought us all around Phnom Penh, we did not have enough time left to visit the royal palace, so we simply chilled along the river and then went back to Phnom Penh central market to buy speakers we had been looking at enviously the previous evening. 

 Royal Palace, seen from outside

 Phnom Penh

Later that night, we took a night bus to Sihanoukville, probably the worst sleeping bus I had so far this year. With no windows, it felt like being cattle carried around Cambodia, and cockroaches did not make the experience any better... But that was the price to pay to get as soon as possible to Koh Rong, Cambodia biggest island turned backpackers paradise only a few years ago (and god knows how long is left before bigger tourist projects start and ruin the myth...), a mix of bungalows, palm trees, white sand and turquoise waters, with no paved street or ATM, where chilling on the beach is the island main activity.

Vision of paradise

I spent the first two days with my two Dutch travel buddies doing nothing, resting and reading on the beach, having naps all day long and waiting for Sam. We also met Ziggy, an extremely nice Thai cook who had worked for thirteen years in Manhattan before coming back to Asia, and had just started a few days earlier his own small food stall on the island, finally becoming his own boss For two dollars, he would cook you amazingly good Thai food, most of the time what he had in mind on that day rather than your choice on the menu, but his fantastic cuisine and his friendliness had already turned him into a superstar on the island, everyone knew about him a week only after he started his micro- restaurant.

To be fair, our routine did not change much once Sam got to the island. Waking up - baguette breakast - beach - some sort of lunch, most times at Ziggy's - more sun and turquoise water - complaining about a clouds - dinner - drinks at Coco's listening to live Disney classics, followed by a healthy dose of good deep house - going for a swim with bioluminescent plankton - sleep. Repeat.

Only one day when we decided to change our usual programme and go on a boat tour to nearby island Koh Rong Samloem, doing some snorkeling and fishing, before coming back to Koh Rong for sunset from Long beach, finishing the day with a barbecue on our boat eating fishes we caught (it tasted pretty bad though, but luckily we also had grilled chicken to feed ourselves). Ward and myself had never caught fishes before, and even if it seemed very easy, I only got a ridiculously small and uggly one, while Ward got nothing at all... Not yet demoralised, he tried spear fishing the next day, only to come back empty-handed once again...

We started meeting more and more people, seeing every day and night more known faces, and after a week it felt like we really knew a lot of people there. I would like to make a special mention of Nicolas, a French guy wearing a t-shirt "I Love Cap Ferret", more than ten thousand kilometers away from my beloved holiday place in southwest France. Surprisingly, and for no obvious reasons, Koh Rong was full of French. In Vietnam, I barely spoke any French for three weeks, but in Koh Rong, I could easily spend an afternoon without using an English sentence, which felt weird to be honest. Also, being a popular backpacker destination, I met there people I had not seen since Laos, and of course many friends from Vietnam too. The travel community is so small!

Koh Rong

I stayed eight days in Koh Rong, which may sound like a lot, and probably would be in normal times, but once you get there it is pretty easy to get stuck, especially when you hear that the Cambodian version of infamous full moon party is taking place at the end of the week. Plus, it was Khmer new year, which means that many Cambodians enjoy an extended weekend and come to the island for short holidays. While this is pretty bad news accommodation-wise (after a few days, it got impossible to get any cheap bungalow), it also means locals celebrating new year over three days, with water and talc powder fights all day long, loud local music and improvised dances in circles in the middle of the street (I had never raved with four years old kids yet but now I can consider it done). It is not as crazy as Songkran, Thailand famous water festival during their local new year (held at the same time, and especially big in Chiang Mai), but a good Cambodian approximation, even if being a bit sick, I could not fully enjoy it. Actually, Sam and Maaike too were not feeling that good, maybe because of some food poisoning or a bad cocktail. In particular, one night, Maaike suddenly felt really sick and had to stay in bed for nearly thirty six hours straight to recover. Luckily, our little princess was back in good shape just in time for the full moon night.

And what a night, she'd better not have missed it. Basically, they took nearly everyone from Koh Rong to the empty island of Koh Rong Samloem (there are very few bungalows, it is usually extremely quiet there...) by boat, and you end up on the beach with no more than a couple hundred people in front of a huge scene/DJ booth, well equipped with massive and good quality speakers, one restaurant-bar on one side, another tiny bar on the other, and the whole bay behind you. Underground western techno and acid house playing until sunrise, which usually happens while you are chilling on the beach, the most hardcore part of the crowd still dancing while some start making their way to the first boat back to Koh Rong... An amazing night, especially since after a week in Koh Rong, it really felt like being surrounded by friends, being friendly and talkative with everyone, and dancing with people you now know.

I am not going to lie, taking a ferry at noon, about three hours after I got back to Koh Rong was quite tough, but I managed to do it. I said bye to most people who were still alive by that time and left the island.

On the boat, I realised it had been such a long time I had not been traveling by myself. Having stuck with most of my biker team for over a month, I was now on a tight schedule and had to leave ahead of them.

From Sihanoukville, I shared a taxi with locals to get to Kampot, another town close to the sea, located two hours east and known in particular for its hill, on top of which French colonists had built in the 1920s a small complex, called Bokor hill station including a hotel, a casino and a church next to it, to escape Cambodian often suffocating warm weather (culminating at 1200m above sea level, that palace sounded like a good idea at that time). The whole complex was surrounded by what is now a national park, giving it even more appeal.

After the French left, those buildings were abandoned, but you can still visit them. From the few photos I had seen, it looked magical, like entering a lost world, and to me, it was the main (or should I say only?) reason to visit Kampot. Do not get me wrong though, with its warm weather and nice guesthouses on the riverside, Kampot is definitely a nice place to chill for a day or two, but I think I had had my fair share of chilling already and had to move on. 

 Guesthouse in Kampot

Unfortunately, once in Kampot I discovered that the old palace had just been destroyed and  replaced by a new resort hotel, as part of a billion dollars real estate project. Yes, you read correctly, a billion dollars project right in the middle of a national park, officially to restore the palace to its previous grandeur but to me, this smells more like high-level corruption and a lot of money to be made for backers of this massive investment... 

 Coming soon @ Bokor National Park

Anyway, the church and some other buildings were still supposed to be there, and I had come all the way just for that, so I decided to rent a scooter and go check it out. The road was nice and curvy but also quite crowded, because so many locals were heading there for the last day of Cambodian new year.

Once on top the hill, I faced this huge, quite impersonal and charmless hotel which now replaces the old palace... What a shame! The old church was interesting though, a good example of derelict building, with its wall covered in graffiti, a very unique mix between religion and aggressive profanity. 

 New Bokor Palace

 Abandoned church

 Inside the church

 Inside the abandoned casino

Bokor hill casino

 Kampot seen from Bokor hill

There were a few other abandoned places offering great views on the surrounding park, and a lot of locals hanging around. Only at that point did I realise that for the first time in my life, I was taking part in new year celebrations for the third time in the same year: first in Uruguay with my family for our western new year, then in Singapore with my friend Chor for Chinese new year at the end of January and finally here for Khmer new year (which falls at the same time as many Southeast Asian new year celebrations, including Thai and Burmese ones).

Anyway, I left Kampot after that and headed to Siem Reap. Because of new year holidays, a lot of busses were sold out, and I had to go back to Phnom Penh to catch a night bus, a less direct route but actually a better option for me: I had forgotten a pair of shoes in our hotel in Phnom Penh and just had time to jump on a tuk tuk to get them. Then, I took my overpriced night bus (ten dollars extra just because it was Khmer new year, but I did not really have a choice...), which turned out to be a normal bus, not even a sleeping bus... Add to that the fact that my tuk tuk driver tried to rip me off and you can understand why I left Phnom Penh on a pretty bad mood, a fact rare enough this year to be worthy of note.

But half a Valium later, I felt deep asleep and this did not really matter anymore, until we reached Siem Reap at 3am. Come on, what is the point of taking a night bus if you arrive in the middle of the night? Some Asian companies still have to figure that out I guess. Three Indonesian girls came out of the bus and convinced me to share a tuk tuk with them and go visit Angkor main temples a few hours later. We dropped our bags in a hostel, had an hour sleep on their huge bean bags and left at 5am with our tuk tuk driver to watch sunrise over Angkor Wat, the biggest religious building in the world and one of Asia most famous temples.

 First sunrise on Angkor Wat

 Sunrise overcrowding

Rarely have I seen such a huge crowd watching a sunrise, but given how beautiful it is, I can easily understand why. We went through most major Angkor temples in the morning, since the girls wanted to catch a bus to Bangkok in the afternoon (yes, they really rushed it). It was a good introduction to Angkor temples, even if it sometimes felt weird being with three random girls more interested in taking selfies than in all the fascinating temples surrounding them.

 Ta Prohm temple, where both Tomb Raider and Two Brothers were shot

 Tree inside Ta Prohm

 Another tree inside Ta Prohm

But it was a good start. At the time they built those temples, only gods deserved stone and bricks, and nothing remains of the wooden buildings in which ordinary people lived. Angkor temples cover a huge area, being separated from each other by forests, and most have been built in the first part of the second millennium CE, often on top of older temples. When they built Angkor Wat (twelfth century), Angkor had a million inhabitants, while London population totalled around thirty thousands only.

 Bayon temple and its characteristic peaceful faces

Weather soon got unbearably hot, and after we came back to the hotel at lunchtime, I decided to visit Angkor national museum, which really helps to better understand Khmer civilisation and heritage and, even more important, has air-con. 

I met two French guys who were going the next day on a tuk tuk to visit more remote temples, and decided to join them. After another sunrise on Angkor Wat, we went on a long trip to a beautiful temple made of red stones, and then walked into a forest to get to a waterfall. Because the end of dry season was approaching fast, and temperatures were reaching year records, there was not a lot of water and therefore the waterfall failed to impress us. But interestingly, rocks all along the river had been carved: first time I saw ancient bas-reliefs in a natural environment! We then went on visiting so many more temples, until our body could not deal with the heat anymore...

 

 Second sunrise on Angkor Wat

 Bas-relief, somewhere north of Angkor Wat

 Red stone temple, again north of Angkor Wat

 

 Sculpted rocks along the river

A major advantage of waking up for sunrise is that you can visit many temples in the early morning, with a nicer light (as you can see on previous pictures), cooler temperatures and nearly no tourists in most temples (it can get very crowded later in the morning, Angkor being by far the most touristic place I have visited here in Asia).

 Good luck opening that door

 A slightly overloaded Camobidan car

Thus, on my third day in Siem Reap, I decided to rent a bike and went by myself for a third sunrise in a row (a personal record, if you exclude end-of-the-night ones), going at my pace and enjoying empty temples for the first few hours in the morning.

 Temple in Angkor Thom (1)

Unfortunately, a shocking aspect of Cambodia is how dirty it is. Like Vietnam, people throw their rubbish around without caring, and even places like some gorgeous beaches on paradisiac Koh Rong island, or even some roads around Angkor temples are covered with trash. A real shame, Cambodia has so much to offer, it would benefit a lot from developing trash collection system and educating people about it!

 Temple in Angkor Thom (2)

At that time, I was staying in one of those cool big hostels, with a nice swimming pool to survive Siem Reap extremely hot afternoons and plenty of backpackers to hang around with. By a stroke of luck, I ended up meeting again Alex, a friend I spent time with in Bolivia and Argentina and who had decided, like me, to follow South America with a trip in Southeast Asia. Our travel word is so small! I met some nice guys there, and in the evening, Ward and Maaike, who had just arrived in Siem Reap, joined me at the hostel rooftop sunset bar. Together again!
 

Sunset rooftop bar, best hostel bar so far this year?

 

I was going to Myanmar next, so spending a day doing nothing in a popular backpackers spot for my last day in Cambodia was definitely not a bad thing. It is also a good way to learn about other travelers background and cultures and make new friends from all around the world. Great travel memories overall, people you meet and travel with may be as important as countries visited. I'll leave you with this quote from a Dutch guy talking about people living in Southwest Holland: "It is not because you drink a lot and rape people that it means you are good company". Wise man.

Much love,

H.

Vietnam

Dear readers, I'm back! 

Resume du troisieme episode asiatique:

Mon sejour d'environ trois semaines et demi au Vietnam commenca par une croisiere de la Baie d'Halong, au cours de laquelle je rencontrai notamment Maaike, Ward, Julian et Sam, deux Hollandais et deux Australiens. Nous decidames chacun d'acheter une moto afin de rejoindre Saigon depuis Hanoi en moins de trois semaines. Le nord du Vietnam fut assez pluvieux et nous essayames d'aller aussi vite que possible retrouver le soleil plus au sud, mais de nombreux soucis techniques nous empecherent de pleinement profter de nos montures. Nous visitames en chemin une magnifique grotte, ainsi que des tunnels utilises pendant la guerre comme abris anti-bombardement. Nous nous arretames quelques jours a Hoi An, charmante ville situee a mi-parcours et remplie de tailleurs, ce dont nous profitames autant que possible. Puis vinrent Nha Trang (station balneaire pleine de Russes), Dalat (jolie ville dans les montagnes du sud Vietnam), Mui Ne (station balneaire bien plus jolie et interessante) et enfin Saigon, ou nous vendimes nos bien-aimees motos, visitames un musee tres marquant sur les victimes de la guerre du Vietnam, et d'ou Julian prit son avion pour rentrer en Australie.

After Singapore, Thailand and a bit of Laos, it was time to get dirty, local, real. Vietnam, show me what you got!

From Vientiane, I flew to Hanoi, Vietnam capital located in the north. I met some friends from Chiang Mai at the airport and we got together on a minibus to the city centre. Unfortunately, our arrival was quite depressing. For the first time in my trip, it was raining. Hanoi is a big dirty city, rain cannot make that any better.

With this terrible weather, I decided to follow Sophie's advice (a British girl I had met in Luang Prabang) and booked a space on the famous Castaway tour in Halong Bay, a three-day tour which includes 24 hours on a private island. This tour being very popular with backpackers, I could hardly have taken any better decision: would you rather be stuck with no sun on a boat full of like-minded young people or surrounded by old tourists, or even worse, families?! 

Halong Bay, Castaway-style

Those three days turned out to be really cool. On our first day, we cruised Halong Bay and went kayaking in some Hong (similar to what I had done around Phuket, but without a guide paddling for you). We stayed on the boat for the first night for a big party to welcome us on board and celebrate Vanessa's birthday, and reached Castaway island the following morning. There, it really felt like being on holidays with a bunch of close friends, talking to everyone, playing beach soccer and volleyball, rock climbing, high speed tubing... Sometimes, it would feel like being back to childhood, at a summer camp, having switched off your brain and only thinking about having fun. Ok, maybe with a few more beers than when you were twelve, but that was pretty much the only difference.

Before arriving to Vietnam, I had thought about buying a motorbike in Hanoi and traveling all the way south to Saigon, but needed some extra motivation to actually do it. On my first day in Hanoi, talking to some people who did it helped me to make my mind, but then Castaway enabled me to meet Maaike and Ward, two Dutches who were traveling on their own too and had the same motorbike plan. Like me, none of them had ridden a manual motorbike before.

Back in Hanoi, we met with Stone, an extremely nice Vietnamese motorbike seller/tour operator who had agreed to sell us a bike and help us find the other two, and most importantly had agreed to spend half a day teaching us how to ride a manual motorbike. 

 My devoted motorbike

When you are used to driving a scooter and using a clutch on a manual car, then learning how to ride a bike should not be a big deal, and you should feel pretty at ease after a couple of hours. But Hanoi has the craziest traffic I have seen in my life: crossing a street by foot is already demanding, so imagine learning to drive there... Hordes of bikes and scooters going in all directions, with no apparent respect for normal traffic laws... To makes things worse, our cheap bikes (Chinese copies of Honda Wins, the perfect bike for that trip) of very dubious quality were already falling apart (Ward started the series of our many mechanic visits with a broken gear pedal and a blocked gas handle, before we even left Hanoi), so you can imagine how intense this was!

But Vietnam is the perfect country to do such a trip. Like in Singapore, car taxes go as high as two hundred percent, but unlike in  the city state where wealth is so abundant that you will still find Ferrari and Rolls Royce cars everywhere, Vietnam does not enjoy that luxury and went for a cheaper alternative: nearly everyone owns a motorbike or a scooter. Which means that you will find bike shops and mechanics everywhere, so it does not really matter if your bike breaks down, most of the time you will get it fixed easily at a highly competitive price. New tyre? Two dollars! Weird oil leak? You need new seals, I'll do it for three... and so on...

Anyway, after having properly celebrated Paddy's day, we left Hanoi, joined by Julian and Sam, two Australians I met at Castaway and who also had bought Wins to go to Saigon. 

About half an hour after having left Hanoi, we had already lost Ward, who was heading to Laos before realising he was on the wrong track. We found him again at the beginning of the Ho Chi Minh trail, which basically is a road linking north and south Vietnam and had been used in wartime to provide support to military factions in the South. Its a nice alternative to very busy Highway One, which links Hanoi to Saigon more directly.

It was still mostly cloudy and rainy, so we did our best to get away from the north as fast as possible, even if that meant spending some time on Highway One, which we quickly renamed "suicide road" because of how dangerous it can be. Surprisingly, we did not see that many accidents on the road, which probably means that no matter how strange Vietnamese traffic rules are, most people actually follow them. The most important one being that as a motorbike, you count as next to nothing, and busses or trucks coming the other way will disregard you when deciding to overtake each other. That is why I was sometimes forced to leave the proper road and quickly get to the side track as crazy bus drivers were speeding up and coming straight at me... Ah, Vietnamese roads... 

Another striking aspect Vietnamese road is how dirty they are. There is no waste collection system outside of cities (and even in cities, do not expect much from it), and people throw away their rubbish without even looking for a bin.

 Herd of cows randomly crossing an intersection, somewhere in north Vietnam

Driving on a dirty beach

We stopped in Ninh Binh and Vinh, but did not see much of these places except from their mechanics, and had to stop one night in the middle of nowhere on the Ho Chi Minh trail, spending the night in a tiny village and our evening with puppies at the mechanic, worryingly looking at Vietnamese guys disassembling piece by piece Sam's motor...

 That does not look very promising...

View somewhere along Ho Chi Minh trail

Literally, we would try to wake up early everyday, but end up spending the all morning at the mechanic, and leave around lunchtime, meaning that we would arrive at night in most cities we slept in. And believe me, suicide road at night is quite scary!

The road is mine

On the following day, Sam's bike seemed to be working better, and we continued on our long journey. As we were passing some mountains, it started raining heavily, but nevertheless we managed to safely get to Son Trach, a small town mostly used as a base to explore Phong Nha-Ke Bang national park, home of the largest limestone cave worldwide. 

 

Inside the cave

Next on our route was Hue. We met a white guy living in Vietnam who gave us lots of good advises on how to get there avoiding busy roads and stopping at the right places.

 Having fun on the beach

Hue is very close to the DMZ (demilitarised zone), which separated North from South Vietnam during the war. Before getting to Hue, we stopped to visit Vinh Moc tunnels, built by villagers to move their village underground and protect themselves from intense US bombing. It was full of children on a school trip, reminding me of French teachers bringing children to Verdun. The tunnels are quite long, dozens of families lived there for years and seventeen kids were actually born under ground level. 

 American bomb shells

 

Tunnel entrance

We finally got (at night, of course) to Hue, and next morning was spent at the mechanic, again, because Sam's bike had broken down once more. I know, this article may sound quite repetitive.

After having driven around Hue's citadel, we decided to split up and to go to Hoi An while Sam would wait in Hue with Julian for his bike to be ready.

 Hue

 

Of course, it took more time than expected, so two hours later our favourite Aussies called us to tell us we would meet on the following day in Hoi An.

Overall, until up to that point, Julian definitely had the most reliable bike, and not much to repair on it. He got bored at the mechanic waiting for Sam's bike to get fixed, so he asked Kim, his local bike expert, to set up a USB plug connected to his battery, plus an iPhone case on his speed counter, just for the sake of it... But however cool his bike was, I still had the fastest of our whole crew!

 A well equipped bike

Riding from Hue to Hoi An was probably one of our best days. First, to avoid highway one as much as possible, we went on a tiny road going through small villages full of temples and cemeteries. We probably passed thirty or forty temples in less than an hour!

Northern Vietnam feels very Chinese, culturally speaking but also based on how people look like and behave (they do not spit all day long though!) and Chinese influence looked very obvious on these temples. Apparently, most Vietnamese believe in some kind of mix between Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, but there are also many Catholics here.

Chinese-style tomb

Anyway, after that, we headed to Hai Van Pass, a road full of turns in the mountain that separates Hue from Hoi An, North from South Vietnam, rainy days from sunny one, cold from warm weather, jeans from short, trekking shoes from flip flops. Finally! The road itself was highly enjoyable, especially because they built a tunnel for Highway One trucks and busses, meaning that the pass is mainly used by bikers who want to have some fun while enjoying great views. Words can hardly describe the feeling of being surrounded by such beautiful sceneries, driving through clouds and ending up a thousand metres higher than where you started your ascent.

 On our way to Hai Van Pass

 Ward driving on Hai Van Pass

View from Hai Van Pass

 Very strange cloud strip at the top of Hai Van Pass, coming from North Vietnam (right-hand side)

 Road to Da Nang, South Vietnam (it got sunnier the following day)

Actually, once at the top I decided to leave the road and went on a small and very steep path that seemed to go even higher to take a cool photo. Around a hundred metres higher, I passed in front of a small building next to which three Vietnamese guys were eating and drinking beer. It was only 5:30 pm but these guys were obviously very drunk already, since they started shouting at me telling me (in Vietnamese) I could not go further, then took dozens of photos with me, and finally offered me beers for the road (I was driving, so when I refused the second one, he put it in my pocket and forced me to keep it for later). When he understood I was French, one of them started shouting "Chamonix!", a famous French ski resort, which seemed to be the only thing he knew about France... So random! 

 My new friends on top of Hai Van Pass

We then got to Da Nang, and then Hoi An. A peaceful town with a charming historical centre that has not been bombed down by American forces, Hoi An is quite famous for its tailors and shoemakers. We were quite keen to stay there for a few days, something we had not done since leaving Hanoi, finally enjoying some well deserved sun, beaches all day long and once in a while going to the tailor for some fittings. Following my technique developed in Phuket, we sneaked into a five star resort on our first day there and spent the afternoon by their pool, surrounded by old Aussies on holidays. The nightlife was quite disappointing though, everyone keeps talking about Hoi An so I guess we expected a bit too much out of it. In particular, the main club there looked like it came straight from the eighties, with mirrors everywhere and one of the worst dj ever... But you can still organise beach parties, sitting around a bond fire with your friends, and that was pretty much all we needed. 

Enjoying some well deserved sun by the infinity pool

 Finally a nice sunny beach !

On our second evening in Hoi An, Sam and Julian got to the city, with a Swedish guy called Ham (like ham and cheese, as he introduced himself). Sam told me they had met him in the Hai Van pass, when he overtook them topless, smoking a cigarette and wearing flip flops, while Sam was freezing on his bike. That sums up quite well how chill Ham is, a very spontaneous, cool guy: we immediately adopted him in our bikers crew.

Hoi An is also the place where I fixed the two biggest problems on my bike: I had been back firing (explosions in my exhaust, with flames sometimes coming out of it) a lot from Hue to Hoi An, which was definitely not a good sign for my bike, but it is not a huge problem either. More important, I also realised my fuel tank was leaking and had to replace it. You could have set me on fire just by throwing a cigarette butt at me. Or maybe simply leaving the bike too long in the sun. Yeah, our bikes were not that safe and solid.

 

Selfie at the tailor

 Behind the scenes

All suited up !

 Julian taking care of our bond fire

Also, if you are looking for good food, Hoi An delivers. I probably had the best Vietnamese food there, in particular they offer white rose: dumplings filled with shrimps, and served with a white-wine sauce and crispy onions... delicious!
 

 Amazing street food in Hoi An

Another random memory: in Hoi An, we started seeing a lot of rats. Hanoi had its fair share too, but there, I even had rats bumping into my feet while waiting in front of my hotel.

Anyway, when we decided to leave Hoi An, we had five hundred kilometers to ride before reaching Nha Trang, another coastal city. That took us two days, but it was such a beautiful ride! Going along the coast felt like being somewhere around the Mediterranean sea, turquoise water, warm and sunny weather... Paradise on two wheels!

 Typical gas refill stop

 On our way to Nah Trang (1)

  On our way to Nah Trang (2) - Hai Van Pass 2.0

  On our way to Nah Trang (3)

 On our way to Nah Trang (4)

  On our way to Nah Trang (5) - Definitely nicer when sun is up!

In two days, and without too many serious bike problems, we reached Nah Trang, a beach resort full of Russians (there is a daily flight from Moscow), quite impersonal and charmless. But we ended up renting a private flat for the six of us, close to the main party places, which was definitely what we needed after Hoi An somewhat dull nightlife. Also, speaking about gay rights and Crimea with Russians remains a priceless experience.

It is also in Nha Trang that I had for the first time eel and crocodile, and it was surprisingly good. After days eating beef noodle soup at lunch and dinner (and quite a few times for breakfast too), my stomach happily had weird new local food!

After Nha Trang, the six of us headed to Dalat, a cute city located in the middle of south Vietnam mountains. A good ride to get there, but because there were not many villages on the way, we were literally praying for our bikes not to break down. And of course they did... After having fixed Maaike's engine and chain, we were back on the road and got to Dalat just before sunset. We stayed in a very cool guesthouse, a bit isolated but boasting a great family atmosphere (hence its name, family guesthouse), shared dinner with everyone sitting on the common room floor and activities organised for the whole house guests. 

 On our way to Dalat (1)

  On our way to Dalat (2)

Greenhouses just before Dalat

We spent a day canyoning in a natural park, abseiling rocks and waterfalls, water sliding (great idea to do it with both Ward and Julian at the same time, all of us ending up with our back and/or legs bruised), cliff jumping... A very good day, even if we finished it under the rain.

Next day, Ham had left us and went straight to Ho Chi Minh City to sell his bike, but we decided to add a stop on our route in Mui Ne, a beach city on the southern coast of Vietnam before getting to Ho Chi Minh City. We left early in the morning, which allowed us to go visit Pongour waterfalls, the most beautiful waterfalls I have seen in Asia so far. And apart from a couple taking wedding photos there, we had the whole site by ourselves... Fantastic! 

 Pongour waterfalls

Back on our bikes, it did not last long before Sam experienced yet another bike problem. His back tyre was flat, so we ended up putting his bike on a truck and went to the closest repair shop to fix it. Then, rain came back in the game, and it started pouring so hard that we were forced to stop: driving fast was actually painful! Once rain was over, the ride became really enjoyable, in the middle of mountains, surrounded by untouched forests... Perfect, until Sam's bike (again) broke down, in the middle of nowhere. He had to buy a rope and Julian pulled him until the next mechanic, who was unable to do anything to fix his bike... Night was slowly falling on us, half of our lights were broken, but we made it to Phan Thiet, about forty kilometres away, on our five bikes but with only four engines running...

 Sam's bike seems to be doing well

Way easier...

Heavy rain in the mountains

Next day, we left Sam's and Maaike's bikes at yet another mechanic (she had heaps of smoke coming out of her exhaust, which would be a standard problem on Sam's bike but not on hers... ) and went on three bikes to Mui Ne, a beach town famous for its white and red sand dunes. 

On our way there, we got controlled by the police. They asked for our motorbike driving license and of course none of us had one. Ward and Julian got away with their car driving license, but my French one explicitly says that I cannot drive a motorbike... But I bullshited my way through and got away with it without even having to pay any fine/bribe. Someone told me Vietnam finally realised tourism could become a big industry and police forces have been explicitly asked not to bother tourist beyond necessary. Five years ago it would probably have cost us more.

 Our five beasts

Sam photobombing a cute puppy photo

 Enjoying a good fat burger, best one in town

Once in Mui Ne, we managed to find a nice hotel, with its beautiful swimming pool facing the sea. It was actually so nice that we ended up spending the whole day relaxing there, only to realise half an hour before sunset that it was probably too late to go check out the dunes... I guess I will have to come back!

By that time, we had to rush a bit, since Julian was flying back to Australia from Saigon a couple of days later, and wanted at least a day in Saigon to sell his bike.

So finally came our last day on our babes, going from Mui Ne to Saigon. For once, Sam's bike was working, and remarkably well (he was nearly as fast as me, but not quite yet... Try again Sammy boy!). Arriving in Saigon was actually quite fun. It had been a while since we had last seen that many scooters and bikes in one town, they were everywhere! But now we were actually experienced, not like on our first day in Hanoi.

 Average traffic

We stayed a couple of nights in Saigon, just enough to sell our bikes, make new friends (including Yuna, a French girl on exchange who knew a few friends of mine from Paris), sadly wish a safe flight back home to Julian, and visit the war remnants museum. This is the most impressive war museum I have ever seen. Unexpectedly, you are first shown pictures and documents about demonstrations which took place around the world against the war and then only documents and objects concerning the conflict itself. Like any war-related museum, it depicts a terribly violent picture of what happened, but the worse is yet to come. Half of a floor focusses on agent orange and its devastating effects on Vietnam, a human as well as ecological catastrophe. Agent orange is an extremely potent defoliant, which Americans used extensively during that war. They sprayed it over so much land it affected people even years after the end of the war, simply because they ate food grown on contaminated fields. By causing mutation in reproductive cells, way too many Vietnamese gave and still give birth to malformed kids. 

Pictures exposed were so strong, it made me feel nauseous, horrible stories about how it affected Vietnamese people would literally bring tears to my eyes. It was shocking.

Leaving that museum, you are left with anger against American government and military commanders who made that horror happen, but at the same it is not just American bashing, since so many photos show you most Americans were against the war and heavily protested and fought to prevent it. But it definitely makes you realise how inhumane men can be.

After that, Julian left us to go back to Australia (he was only on a three-week holiday) and finished to sell our bikes. Basically, we just hung out the night before at our hotel rooftop bar, and since nearly everyone staying there was either selling or buying bikes, talked to people and agreed on prices over a beer. As simple as that! We all sold them for about $300, which was good except for Sam who spent maybe $150 on his repairs...

Overall, we broke/had to fix:
- a gear pedal
- a gas handle
- lights
- spark plugs
- Sam's whole engine, he actually bought a brand new set of gears
- breaks
- clutches
- spokes
- tyres
- seals
- a lot of bolts to tighten
- racks
- batteries
- my gas tank

- suspensions (simply tightening them though)
- fenders
- chains
- electric starters
- hoses
- horns
- chain protection
- Ham's seat
- exhausts
- some stuff on Maaike's and Ward's engines
... and probably many more parts I forgot. But they were great bikes, and it was part of the fun!

After that, we decided not to stay long in Vietnam and I took a bus with Maaike and Ward straight to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to head as soon as possible to a beach and finally get some well deserved rest after our tiring Vietnamese experience. Plus we did not really like Saigon, one of those big and somewhat dirty Asian cities that I try to avoid during this trip, even if I have to admit that some parts of it were nicer than expected. There's a beautiful central post office, a French-inspired cathedral and a few impressive modern skyscrapers which clearly show Saigon growing importance as a major economic centre in Asia.

 Saigon cathedral

 My baby and Bitexco financial tower, designed by Carlos Zapata

Since the route to follow when visiting Vietnam is quite straightforward and because people end up hanging out around the same places, we kept meeting the same people and see the same faces in different towns. I mean, it is true of my all trip here in Southeast Asia (there are not many possible different routes to follow), but it is always nice to arrive in a new town and come across a face you know, like those Swedish we met in Hoi An, Nha Trang and Saigon, or these Danish girls we saw in about the same places, or Kush who we saw pretty much everywhere... And we kept seeing them even in Cambodia, but that's another story... Coming soon in my next post!

Thanks for reading!

Jean-Paul