The 5000 Project

After an exhausting bus ride, I teamed up with the only foreigner on the bus (a japanese guy) to attempt walking to a hostel from his guidebook. The heat was quite a shock, after the cool highlands of the south, chengdu did not have the high altitude to protect from the heat, the climate reminded me of perth in summer – except with a permanent thick smog cloud.

The hostel was large but impressive. Last time I was in chengdu it was the cold off-season, I paid $1/night for a dorm room, this time around I paid $6 (same fee for all chengdu hostels) during the peak season – regardless of seasons the growth rate of china is immense, I noticed that everything was much more expensive than 3 years ago, in general.

Highlights of chengdu were:
– Being hand fed sheep brain during a night of hot-pot (gas stove inside the table, huge pot on the top for boiling… anything, which we do ourselves). I think the young girl who was hand feeding us really wants to be a mother. The sheep brain was really bad, mushy in texture, pretty much as bad as it looks.
– My other shoe base fell apart, only days after I got the other one repaired in lijiang. I managed to get it re-stitched the same as the other one for exactly the same price… and using the exact same tools…. the guy looked pretty similar too… :O
– I bought a 1 person tent! for $40, yet to be used, better be worth it for that price

The hostel that I stayed in was the cental point for foreigners to find a group of backpackers to share the massive cost of tours and permits to tibet, which averaged at ~$500 per person. Some people were there for weeks trying to find enough people to team up with, else the fee would be even more. Restrictions which the chinese goverment only limit to foreigners, I’m sure they will never change this rule considering how much money they seem to be making off it, unfortunately the more people heading out there would just confirm that they have the correct system in place. Once in tibet, foreigners in the tours are unable to venture out on their own and must say in the scheduled towns and hotels/hostel. The other alternative, which I chose, is to head a little further west to the isolated and scattered tibetian villages inside the same provence.

I teamed up with a german girl and two Israelis (a note: there are shitloads of Israeli tourists in china, most head there straight after their stint of compulsory army) and we decided to head to a mountain range known as the 4 girls (or Siguniang Shan). 10hrs drive and 300kms later and we arrived in a very tiny and isolated tibetian village, my general friendly and random ‘nihow’ (hello in chinese) is actually ignored by the locals in defiance of the chinese occupation, I picked up a couple of tibetian words to remain nice and randomly friendly once again. It was a great town, but extremely cold.

We all planned on hiking to the summit of the first peak, which would have taken us to almost 4.5km above sea level. The first day we took a small day trek through the mountain valley, arriving in the end at a huge clearing of buffalo with epic mountains surrounding the area. Unfortunately the next day, which we planned to start our climb to the summit, was struck with bad weather. This was not all bad, as it didnt matter how isolated we were, there was still a hefty fee to climb and a chinese guide had to go with us adding additional fees which would total to ~$60 – the bad weather was a sign that the spontaneous decisions I was making were not in the good interests of the overall project. The israeli guy decided to stick around for a few days for the weather to clear, the israeli girl headed further west into the border of tibet; and I headed back to chengdu with the german girl, we ended up being great travel companions for the rest of china.

On the drive back to chengdu we passed over a different mountain range and through snow covered areas, my excited talking triggered the driver to stop for a while so I could get out and take photos; unfortunately not enough snow to roll around in like a crazy person, though. For the last leg of the drive we went through a tunnel in which we waited 30min before being allowed to pass through… at the end of the tunnel I understood why. We witnessed the blatant devastation of the 2008 earthquake, the chinese government left the damaged area untouched and moved the townsfolk to different areas of china, rebuilding new towns for them. The damage was so huge, massive powerlines were horizontal, the raging river in the middle of the mountain ravine was actually flowing over what used to be the old highway, scattered in parts with halves of houses and crushed cars. Unfortunately the makeshift dirt road carved into the side of a mountain was so bumpy that I couldn’t capture many photos.

Upon arriving back in chengdu, I purchased a smartphone for $150 (after reading a few reviews and wiping the chinese firmware, replacing it with a much faster and less completely-chinese-characters android derivative) and also fixed up the same one for my german buddy. Shortly after that we took a bus to the highly touristy but truely amazing and beautiful blue lakes and mountains of Jiuzhaigou.

well, as it turns out, I seem to be spamming people with posts instead of trying to strip everything down to a couple of posts – sorry :(

so… here I am in urumqi, the very far north west of china. I may have skipped blog posting for a few locations since kunming, it has been almost 2 months since I arrived in kunming and to be honest – I have been lazy.

Lazy for not writing anything in this fancy blog and also lazy for not couchsurfing when I had the opportunity to. The main issue is that chinese hostels are amazing; theyre clean, comfortable, fun and very cheap. They also get a bit addictive, especially when bumping into the occasional westerner who is heading in the same direction, this is actually the first time during my trip that I have been on my own; and I seem to be at the very end of china, about to approach the most isolated areas in the world.

So, I sit here now, being the only foreigner in the most well known YHA in urumqi. An international youth hostel, with only one international youth (well, old youth). I’m sitting here drinking a $2 bottle of wine that I purchased at the local supermarket, trying to will myself to write about the last two months – while surrounded by heaps of new-age chinese backpackers. I sit here with plenty of time on my hands, yesterday I put through a visa application for Kyrgyzstan and unfortunately because I did not put it through the day before, I will now have to wait two weeks for the visa to be processed; due to next week being a chinese holiday, the entire monday to friday, of which only the wealthy chinese will have the opportunity to have off, and apparently also the kyrygzzttraabfudbians.

Not really sure how to write this post, its bound to be far too long that noone will be bothered to read too much, otherwise I could spam everyone’s facebook and twitter with 5 separate posts. I think its best to just mention the really interesting stuff and leave a more controversial china post for after I cross the border.

So, here’s what happened:

Dali:
Invented a revolutionary pool game with a dutch guy, the game is called powerplay, its a drinking game where you have to take no more than 3 seconds to take a sh…. ah… I’ll leave that for another time.
Dali is a city surrounded by beautiful hills and a massive lake, there is an old town which is half fake, quite touristy. Marijuana grows naturally in the surroundings of dali, you can occasionally see it simply growing on the side of the road.

Lijiang:
Lijiang has a much larger fake town, and within the fake walls of the fake ancient village buildings, are clubs for wealthy chinese tourists, with neon lights and dancing girls. The hostel was very nice, run by ‘mamma’ who is a naxi (not nazi), ethnic minority of the area; she (and her kitchen employees) prepared a huge communal feast for dinner every night for only $3. In this hostel I met an awesome group of backpackers, together we all headed out to the ‘tiger leaping gorge’ which is a steep trek through a giant mountain range, from the top we were 3000mtrs above sea level, looking up at mountains that were 5000mtrs – we were unable to see the top, shrouded by thick clouds. This amazing trek took two days, the first night we stayed in a hostel at the half-way point, with mountain views even from the toilet.

Tiger Leaping gorge is the first tourist location in china I have been to where the entry fee was very cheap and there are almost no chinese tourists. You see, the chinese have a fee for everything; mountains, hills, scenic walks and even beaches. Although when there is something that involves a bit of effort and doesn’t have a chairlift or cablecar to get up there, suddenly the fee is halved and the walk is peaceful and void of chinese tourists. The eventful part of this trip was the two irish guys and a chinese girl skinny dipping in one of the huge waterfalls along the way (unfortunately I wasnt with them at the time, I would have joined in I’m sure).

In lijiang one of my shoes split all around the base, I managed to get a boot..smith from the old town to hand stitch the base back together for only $1.20. The shoe still feels as good as new 1.5months on. I also got my jeans and jumper patched up nicely, now wouldnt it be nice to get to london with the same clothes, covered in patches – authentic! – I also bought a huuge russian jacket with a fur underlay for $12, a canadian backpacker found a russian fur hat to go with it during a bike ride, which he gave to me. I’m now well prepared for the true cold that awaits.

Lijiang food involved yak meat on a skewer and deep fried insects of all different types, remarkably tasty. Due to another chinese holiday, I had to stick around lijiang for a week longer in order to get a bus out to chengdu, a 24hr bus which I told myself last time I will never take again.

Alright, I need to stop typing – I have already typed 871 words, I’ll leave the rest of china for another post.

I walked over the long bridge to china, customs tagged my bag after it got scanned, I opened it to show my fishing reel and had to mime fishing in order to convince the customs guy it isnt something other than what it is, with a positive chuckle he let me pass.

The china-side bordertown of hekou is a thriving trade port with absolutely amazing noodles, best I have tasted so far, peanuts and lots of weird green stuff, also had awesome tasting red stuff. The feeling of not knowing what I’m eating is kind of liberating. I booked a bus ticket to kunming, leaving at 6pm the same day, thankfully had to waste no further days and hopped on the bus after flaneuring the town for a few hours.

Departing hekou I noticed something very interesting, the parkland on the riverside was filled with chinese people doing aerobics, thats right, not tai chi. It seems that while the west is taking up tai chi in a big way, the east is finding benefits in the fast paced music jog-along.

The bus trip was once again a little too cosy, I was bunched up right in the back with not only one chinese guy, but 4. I made a mental note of ensuring that I don’t get the back beds anymore, else try with all effort to get myself a train ticket instead. Thankfully the 12hrs went quickly and there was no excruciating asia-opera-pop playing in the background.

I arrived in kunming at a bus station on the outskirts of the town, when arriving from laos during my last trip the bus station was right in the middle of the city. Not what I was expecting. I knew where to take the local bus, but only from the south train station, I mimed a train to a guy who grabbed my bags and threw them into a van without asking, he understood and before I hopped in I made the rubbing of fingers notion to ask ‘wait a sec buddy, how much are you going to charge me for this?’ he said 6, but it was in a chinese accent, someones when they say six they actually mean 18, or 10, or 27. After a 20min drive to thankfully the correct train station, turns out the 6 he asked for was actually 50, when I gave him 10 and he started to get really angry; I decided that 50yuan ($7) was probably worth the effort of not starting a fight; even though it was a highly inflated price for a seat in a full minivan.

In the city I noticed something quite amusing, on every second street corner there was a large intimidating black robot statue with a red button and police tags all over it, I figure if you need help its best to let the robot know and he will send for the police. Maybe they made it intimidating so that kids don’t keep pressing it…. actually I’m pretty sure the robot look would only entice children to mess with the system.

the black robocop

I recognized the area and remembered the bus and the direction that I needed to travel, even the obscure stop, in order to get to a western hostel known as ‘cloudland’ – which made life a lot easier than last time I was in this city. Unfortunately for me though, chinese school holidays had just begun, all rooms and dorms were full – not only that but they were full for all the western hostels in kunming. It is illegal for foreigners to stay in chinese hostels, I have heard stories of the police arriving to throw foreigners out; the only other choice was to say at an expensive hotel; which I had no intention of doing. After a while of moaning at reception, we struck a deal that I can stay on the couch in the cafe/bar after midnight for only 10yuan ($1.50). I quickly confirmed this most excellent unilateral business transaction and rested well ’till morning.

Seeing the sights of kunming in my prior trip (tai chi lake, etc), the only thing I really wanted to do this visit was to see:

1. The Kingdom of Dwarves (a theme park of dwarves/midgets acting out as people in a medieval community – a lot of people in the hostel didn’t think this was politically correct, I wanted to check it out before judging it) which unfortunately was too expencive to get to, being on the outskirts of the city, when only me and some dutch guy were interested in going there; and..

2. the fake apple stores which had been in the news recently, they come with fake apple products and fake apple hipster employees (who actually think that they were hired by a real apple business) – unfortunately for me, within the one week of it making the news, all of these stores in kunming were closed down or renamed/redesigned, not even worthy of taking photos.

Knowing that both these things could not be achieved, I took a relaxing and scenic 6hr train to dali for the same day, arriving on the very start to the slope towards the himilayas in a very chilled out city.

The sleeper bus to lao cai (border to china and very close to sapa) was different to the other sleeper buses I took in Vietnam, this one involved two level bunks with two very narrow beds right next to each other, so I was practically sharing a double bed with a Vietnamese guy – who, like all people who tend to share beds with me, took most of it. The Vietnamese pop-opera was also once again blasting on the close proximity speakers and TV until the early hours of the morning. Thankfully my bed pal left early in the morning, however it wasn’t long before we arrived at the destination.

A few hrs wait, the people with sapa tickets got on another bus and suddenly the scenery changed, we drove though mountains quickly gaining altitude, the scenery was shockingly beautiful, rice terraces and tall hills with thick vegetation. The bus stopped in the town of sapa, 1600mtrs above sea level.

The town itself is a tourist hub, although to my surprise I managed to find a dorm bed for $4/night, the room only had three beds so it was only just on the verge of being defined as a dorm, quite a nice find. The day after arriving I decided to trek solo to the village of lao chai, 10min into the journey a local old lady and young girl followed me, guiding me down shortcut pathes and lending me their umbrellas, when arriving in the village they requested that I purchase some of their handcrafted fabrics; this is what most of the local people do everyday from sapa town, a large profit for their simple lives. I gave them $5 but didn’t purchase anything, they gave me two coloured fabric bracelets for my generosity, I am still wearing them today.

The coloured garb of the locals at first seemed like it was simply to attract tourists, although during the bus trip into the mountains, I noticed the same vibrantly coloured clothing on local farmers on the roadside. During the second day trek I noticed more of the same, after we (two spainiards, a german, a french; and I) got lost attempting to trek back to sapa after taking a car to a huge waterfall at the end of the valley. We missed the official path and ended up walking most of the 12km trek through fields of corn, rice and native vegetables; at some stage we seemed to be walking through an irrigation stream. We noticed primitive, non-touristy villages scattered throughout the valley.

The H’mong people actually inhabit the long strip of highlands that runs through the top of thailand, laos and vietnam; I recognized the same clothing when scootering through the hills north of pai during a thailand trip a couple of years ago. The H’mong people of sapa speak their own traditional language as their first language, english as their second language (to communicate with tourists) and vietnamese as their third; oddly enough they should be able to communicate easier with a non-vietnamese tourist moreso than a vietnamese tourist. Each year the quantity of tourist visitors to sapa doubles, there is much construction and soon enough the small villages will begin to change.

I returned to lao cai, spent a night in a dodgy hotel for $6 (after trying 8 hotels ranging from $7-$10) and walked over the border to china the next day.

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Extremely delayed with the blog posts, I have been traveling with fellow backpackers and haven’t had time to catch up, plus the net in china is pretty crappy. I’m currently half-way up china :| will post more soon.

so I landed in hanoi, stepped out of the plane, experienced a wave of 35c heat; quite a shock compared to the 15c back in perth. I was determined to not be ripped off by the dodgy motorbike and car taxis for the 30min trip to the city, after asking around I found that there is a local bus on the other side of the highway, 10min walk from the airport in an obscure underpass. The bus cost 25c, quite a difference compared to the $5 for minivan or $20 for taxi. Unfortunately, not knowing where I needed to be dropped off (lacking the GPS on the recently stolen phone), I decided to wait until the last stop and get off in the assumption that it would be in the city centre. Taxi drivers pushed, shoved, grabbed and even punched to get me to ride with them; I resisted firmly and walked over the road to a dodgy cafe that had very flakey wifi. I google maps’d the address on the cafe door, although after speaking with the waitress (by speaking I mean having a 10min english and vietnamese confusion barrage) I got the drift that she was trying to get me to google the cafe name, I did so… in my shock I found that I was miles away from where I assumed the bus had dropped me off, yet I still attempted to walk to the destination. After a good hour of walking, I admitted defeat and hailed a motorbike taxi, giving the address of the residence of a girl I met just before I left hanoi before. I approached the premises to find that it was actually a cafe with a secure lift, thankfully the cafe had wifi (like every second shop in vietnam) and I skype called my soon-to-be host, she came down and accompanied me to her humble abode.

Due to study commitments with her and her boyfriend, I spent the rest of the day relaxing from a sleep deprived two connecting flights, I slept well that night. I woke at 11am the next morning to find that half the appartment was in water after extremely heavy rains during the early morning, flooding the balcony which seeped under the glass sliding door. In my panic state I decided to have a shower before attempting to clean up the moisture with towels and whatever additional liquid obsorbing materials I could find, the rain had stopped and the water wasnt flowing further into the appartment. To my surprise, I finished a quick shower to find the caretaker and a cleaning lady cleaning the mess, no real damage to furniture or valuables, thankfully.

The next night I went out drinking with my host at a beer hoi stall (extremely cheap homebrew beer, as mentioned in previous posts) I met with some Europeans when my host left, when the hour of crime arrived, I decided it might be best if i hang out with my newly found colleagues considering they lived close to my accomodation. by the end of the night I made it back to the appartment with no incidents and all my possesions, only to find that the front door was locked, the key that the host had given me did not work for this main lock, only the elevator. After making a bit of a noise, the night guard, who was covered in tattoos, stopped watching TV inside the cafe and walked to the door, regardless of me holding up a key and pointing upwards, he signaled a phone with his hands and went back to watching shitty american reality tv shows with vietnam subtitles. There I was, alone in the dark and sinister streets of hanoi in the early hours of the morning. I took his advice, I walked once again at dangerous’o’clock through the streets of hanoi in search for a net connection for skype. I found a late night WoW and Warcraft3 internet dungeon and attempted a skype call to my host, her phone was turned off. I decided to stay in the netcafe until morning, armed with a few highly potent asia redbulls, At around 11pm most drinking establishments and all shops are closed due to a curfew, considering the area I was staying in, away from tourists, the thought of trying to find anywhere else to bide the time was quite daunting.

after a hefty sleep when the guard unlocked the door at 7am, I booked my ticket to sapa for the same night; sapa is a town in the beautiful highlands and rice terraces on the china border, last time I traveled down from china I ended up taking a train directly to hanoi from the border, only to find that I accidently skipped the most scenic location in vietnam. I was sure not to make the same mistake this time around.

*** Fun facts gathered from hanoi:
apparently motorbike riders take off their mirrors because its the cool thing to do, adding a nice level of danger to their already dangerous lives

Females dont smoke cigarettes as it is seem as a masculine thing to do, due to this, smoking companies are now targeting women specifically to unlock a 50% market potential

Sapa keeps doubling the tourists each year, it started off as a very unknown area not long ago with no tourist facilities

A lot to cover when first glancing at that post subject, although most of these places I rushed through to get to hanoi quickly in order to get home to my parents, so I’ll just sum up each location:

Nha Trang:
The party town of vietnam, mainly full of english party-going backpackers, also plenty of aussies. Drinks, drugs, sex and exploitation.

Hoi an:
A really quiet town with old buildings and a beach full of happy locals as far as the eye can see. Visited old hindu ruins at a site called ‘My son’, turns out the same people who built the temples were the folks back in indonesia who built ‘prambanan’ (the dudes who left jogjakarta for bali after scary earthquakes, which gave birth to the hindunization of the unique island). During the vietnam war, the US bombed the shit out of the ‘my son’ site as they assumed the viet cong were hiding there, when they were actually hiding out in the surrounding jungles.

Hue:
Nice old royal temple, was there for half a day.

Hanoi:
well, the old town is really awesome, old buildings and old markets at every corner; cheap beer hoi. Just don’t do what I did and get rather drunk on the night before flying home and accept a free motorbike taxi ride to my hotel by a couple of very attractive local ladies. The second lady jumped on the back of the bike, behind me, and managed to distractingly feel my pants for my phone and sneak it out very so subtly while the riderlady accelerated in any direction fast enough for me not to want to risk jumping off. My hands were firmly on my pockets knowing her motives, although when I got off the bike, I assumed everything was in their rightful pockets and accounted for, except when I had a proper check. Running after the speeding bike was quite futile. The same night, my english travel buddy who was sharing the hotel room got a knife to his throat and was robbed of whatever notes he had in his wallet at the time. Not the best place to walk the streets drunk and alone.

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Next post will resume the project, after a month of quality time with my parents during the difficulties that my dad has endured, I am confident now that he is heading towards a significant recovery.

I just arrived back in hanoi, this time I’m staying with expats that I met at a pub when I was here before, in a hope to get a more positive outlook of this city. Still eager to get a bus ticket to sapa rather quickly, however.

A few weeks ago my dad collapsed at work and was rushed to hospital with pancreatitis. The last time this happened was four years ago and he was lucky to survive. I heard the recent news while I was in bangkok and at the time I was considering heading back to perth, however I heard he was recovering well so I decided to keep the journey going.

Unfortunately in the last few days he has been sent back to hospital with a possible pancreas infection and is currently not in a good condition, in a week or so he may be admitted in for serious surgery.

I’ll be putting the project on hold once I get to Hanoi where I can fly back to perth, ill freeze the funds from that point and continue in a few weeks from now if all goes well.

My dad is a subscriber to this blog so if he has the energy he will be able to read this post from the hospital, if people could wish him well in comments it would be gladly appreciated.

Thanks

Sab

For the first time during this journey, I wasn’t hot. Da lat is a city in the highlands 400kms north of ho chi minh. The cool air comes with a cost though, there are heaps of Asian tourists so everything is a little expensive. after walking around for a while, I found a dorm for $5 a night. There aren’t many western tourists and if they do arrive they pay for their own room, this gave me a unique opportunity to hang out with local visitors who choose the cheap dorm because they can’t afford anything better. All three guests in the dorm were motorbike taxi drivers for tourists known as ‘easy riders’ they do long distance journeys but charge $20/day when they get customers, these kind of drivers are all over the city.

They invited me to have dinner with them, so we all headed out to a local restaurant which puts out a gas stove in the middle of the table and when the initial soup is served on top, it is upto us to cook the noodles along with the vast mound of vegetables and herbs. Although their English was a bit poor, we managed to understand each other after a few half shots of vodka when someone calls ‘yo’. They had a good month with their collective income, so it was a night of celebration. What seems to happen is that during the bad months, they survive solely off money that they borrow from friends who are doing quite well, and during this good month the debt is paid. Spreading the wealth in an unofficial socialist way. I found a similar thing in Cambodia, a street full of tuktuks would all be working together, the guy who knows English the best would be the manager, not actually a driver.

After lots of drunken talk about girls, sex and female body parts – I managed to change topic and fetched some interesting info on how free tourists are, yet the locals are quite constricted.

One of the guys mentioned that if he rides with a westerner on the back, the cops never touch him. He could speed right past them. If he’s riding on his own or with a local, he gets speeding fines for no reason, one time he was going 40km/h and given a 1000000 dong ($50) on the spot fine, a huge amount for a lowly income.

Da lat is a beautiful area with really nasty cheesy tourist foundations. I paid $12 to see a whole day of them. One attraction is a nice scenic view on a hill, they have ticket booths to gain entrance and the summit has cheap kiddy rides and untrustworthy carnies, destroying the nature view. This park is known as ‘the valley of love’ it has love themed cartoon statues scattered throughout.

Each waterfall in the surrounding area also has an entrance fee, one even had a rollercoaster to provide transport, incase the 10min walk down is too far.

One great thing about da lat is the huuggge market, awesome food. Traditional pho noodle soup stands were everywhere, all different styles. There’s also bakery stalls which also serve hot flavoured soy milk to go with the pastries, I chose a muffin thing with custard in the middle. One benefit from French occupation.

For lunch one day I bought a huge ripe avocado, 2 baguettes and a small jar of salt with pepper and citric acid. Bloody awesome lunch and so very cheap, probably lacking in nutrients though.

After a few days I came to the conclusion that I have got the most out of this town, I booked a bus ticket to nha trang.

Also like to note, I am not going to see another waterfall, I’m totally waterfalled out. A bit islanded out too. Bring on north asia and Europe.

Some of you may be wondering why I am in Vietnam already. Well, I visited siem reap (Angkor wats) during my last trip and covered a bit about the ancient history in that blog – also there was no other place to visit to the east without requiring an English speaking local or couchhost to help me out.

Ho Chi minh is a really nice city – there are many parks and the streets are clean, best part is that the locals enjoy the privileges of the city which was a welcome sight after Cambodia. Each night I would head to the beer hoi stall, a small street pub that only sells homebrew beer on tap for 25c per middy, and talk all night with locals and backpackers as equals. They would cram everyone into a tiny area and you’re forced to sit with strangers while the ridiculously cheap fresh tap beer flows endlessly, every 10min a local would shout YO (cheers) with a raised glass and the clash of glasses with spilling beer within the entire pub would invigorate the crowd; everyone has to take a swig – else risk being disrespectful to local culture. It was a very jovial atmosphere.

having an excellent time with a local and a canadian, over beer and candied duck intestine

Ho Chi minh city unfortunately shares a similar depressing recent past with Cambodia; the well known Vietnam war. I visited a very interesting war museum which portrays the other side of the story different to what I have been brought up to understand. The ground floor displayed photos and newspaper articles displaying protests from many countries around the world, against the American offensive in Vietnam. They even included the American people’s protest and although the museum definitely had a bias, it was never against American individuals, only the leaders. For a Communist country that likes to end protests quickly, to me it seemed to be promoting the evident effectiveness of going to the streets with free speech.

The history exhibit may not be what you will read in the Wikipedia article for the war although it was a very interesting sight. The war started with the French returning to Vietnam purely to reclaim their lost control over Indochina. After many French were captured in an ambush, they decided to do what they do best, they retreated and surrendered the land back to the Vietnamese people. This is about the time when the US arrived to help the French, but unlike the French they didn’t leave, they had their own reason to stick around, paranoia of communism. This, according to the museum’s portrayal of history, was the only reason the invasion occurred towards Vietnam as a whole.

a US tank with a vietnam banner in the background, war museum

With my limited and possibly inaccurate western history knowledge (typing local blog post, can’t check Wikipedia), I was under the assumption that before the US arrived there was a struggle with the south to fight back Communist aggressors in the north. According to current day Vietnam, this is not the case.

To quote some guy: history is made by the people who write the history books.

There was definitely a north vs south, but I think the lines were blurred towards the end. I found it interesting that the elaborate maze of Vietcong tunnels are just a few kms from ho Chi minh, a notion that the Vietcong were everywhere.

The tunnels had large top-side entrances so that the Americans can try to go through them, but then the tunnels gradually get narrow which causes the US (and Aussies) to get stuck in a very unfortunate location. The tunnels and nasty looking traps were a huge way of trying to even the balance vs the mass weaponry of the US army… and their puppets (as is written in the museum).

In ho chi minh I stayed in a new dorm hostel managed by a couple of Brits, I was their first guest. They actually had the same idea that I formed during the last trip, introduce dorm accommodation to south east Asia, there is never an ultra cheap alternative to a ‘1 bed room with fan’ when traveling alone in these parts – I should have jumped to this idea years ago, hmm maybe I could be the competition once I finish this project. As long as I don’t present my ideas to the public, I should be fine :|

some locals enjoying noodles and beer on a clean street full of nice trees, city centre

After seeing the sights, unfortunately not getting a response from couch requests, I headed north to the city of da lat; in the cool highlands, a refreshing change of temperature.

The weather was good but the sense of westerner guilt in a deprived country did not fade.

I was confirmed by a couchhost although upon arrival in the city I had no message providing address, the profile mentioned that he runs an indi cinema, confirmation email mentioned that he is generally there from 5pm each day. So I checked the website and found the address of the ‘movie house’ and decided to attempt a long walk there.

During the walk I noticed that certain areas were purely for  foreigners, all the shops were new and flash, everything was highly expensive, the only locals within the walls were the employees of the foreign invested businesses – the majority of the locals were outside in their tuktuks and motorbikes waiting to provide transport for the foreigners.

After an interesting walk I arrived at the movie house and met with my host. That night we went to a foreigner pub, containing mainly NGO employees and a few Expats, for the weekly ‘nerd night’ which consisted of anyone presenting a slideshow on a projector and having a talk about anything, their passion, a project they’re working on, or it could just be about themselves. It reminded me of TED talks in perth but a lot more frequent and with people from all areas of the world – really interesting stuff.

I ate dinner right in the middle of a large busy market

What made the night even more interesting was the controversial chat I had with my host after a few drinks. Disclaimer: what follows may only apply to certain scenarios, I don’t have a long list of references to prove complete truth. Purely speculation from what others have told me. Which I guess is exactly what a blog is.

Pol Pot’s Khmer rogue reign of slaughter resulted in 3.6 million educated people killed or  missing. Their culture was destroyed. As such, a lot of the locals don’t know how to read their own language; they also have no concept of what a movie is, with a beginning middle and end. My host used to provide a day for free screenings for locals, his cinema is the only one showing actual movies in phnom penh that isn’t just slapstick cambodian comedy or chinese Charlie Chapman. While the locals watched the western movies they would get bored and leave, even though some of them understood the language it was a matter of not understanding the concept of a movie story.

The country is so poor, yet there are so many NGO funded English schools to help the children. What this seems to do however is inject money into the growing occupation of foreigners and foreign investment, NGO management drive expensive cars and spread the wealth to the feel-good backpacker employees when, sure enough the kids learn a bit of English, however there is no handover for the next teacher to replace the last one after a few months – so they start from the beginning again. The end result: tuktuk drivers who sound like they know fluent English, until you attempt conversation.

The government is not helping the people at all, instead they build more on the foreigner-occupied areas, such as, what will be the second highest building in the world on an artificial island, for the financially bullshit of the world to visit. Meanwhile 90% of the Cambodian people live on the rice fields in the country areas, in poverty, just as the Khmer rouge envisioned. 50% of the population is under 21, the new  young generation is not getting a new age upbringing.

The tuktuk drivers provide for their families in the country, while in the city they actually sleep in their tuktuks as accommodation. This was a frequent observation.

To continue the negative vibe, lets get on with what I did in this city. Well, I went to the genocide museum where people were tortured to death and the killing fields were hundreds were killed and buried.

I could go into detail but its far too sad and this post is getting too long already. All i’ll say is that after the genocide; we, as citizens from UN countries, appointed pol pot the Cambodia seat at the UN and for some reason there has been little media attention on this era of real terror since. From my experiences many people in the world aren’t aware of how nasty the Khmer rouge was, when he was just a step below Hitler.

Skulls on display at the Killing Fields, one of many mass grave sites all through cambodia

Now for some positivity.

The house where I was staying is a 3 story building with a rooftop shower. A shower completely in the open, but high enough for a little bit of privacy, was quite different.

the rooftop shower :D

After a few days of walking all over the city and seeing the sights, I applied for a Vietnam visa (cost $45, can’t get it at the border) which took a couple of days. On my final night I joined a pub quiz at a foreigner bar, my host was the quizmaster, then headed to Vietnam on a bus the next morning. No real adventures to be had.