Chapter 7: Is this a Big Temple or Wat?

Everywhere we have been in Vietnam so far, the locals have said how they want to forgive America for the War 30 years ago and welcome them back into their country. However, they have reserved The War (Crimes) Museum in Saigon to have a bloody good moan and rightfully so. The gallery they have there is quite jaw dropping and you need a fairly strong stomach to look at a lot of the photos. I leave you to imagine what Napalm does to the face of a child or Agent Orange does to an unborn baby. As well as the photo gallery they also have a good collection of vehicles captured from, as they put it, 'Crazy American Killing Devils'.

U.S. Air F.........ucked!!!!

Our final port of call in Vietnam was the Cu Chi Tunnels - a complex maze of underground passages that the Vietnamese Army used to keep the Yanks at bay - basically by popping up unexpectedly, firing off a few rounds and popping back underground again - much like Whack-a-Mole, but with AK-47s instead of rubber mallets.

I am a mole and I live in a hole

So the time came for our 'Holiday in Cambodia'. We set sail down the Mekong River, stopping off at various interesting points along the way, such as the local fish farm where the only fish you could see were the dead ones floating on the top. "Grilled or fried sir?"

Country number 4 - Chalk it up

We arrived in the capital, Phnom Penh and checked into a hostel overlooking a beautiful lake. Here, we were again faced with the darker side of humanity. We visited the S-21 detention centre and Killing Fields used during Pol Pots regime. S-21 was converted from a school which made it very creepy and the Killing Fields (self-explanitory) had a huge tower containing skulls of the men, women and children that were executed there. General consensus from tourists and locals alike it that Pot was a bit of a bastard.

In need of some light relief from the days viewing we opted to try the local speciality - Happy Pizza :) No prizes for guessing which potent leafy substance is sprinkled on top which leaves the consumer with a stupid grin on their face for the rest of the night. What better to do in that frame of mind than to sit in the hostel and watch a Mr Bean DVD. But who could have believed the reaction it got from our fellow hostilians!! Chinese, Americans, English, Australians, Vietnamese, Irish......everyone loves Bean! For the scene where he goes dancing in the nightclub there was standing room only! Standing room only I tell you! I think the UN need to look into this.

Photo taken an hour later - unpublishable

Moving north to Siem Reap, once more it hit home that travelling the world is not all sight seeing, drinking and general slap and tickle. On day one we saw the land mine museum with lots of children missing limbs and then later, in the small hours, child prostitutes on the streets. It's times like that you do realise Trowbridge isn't quite the shithole we all know and love.

The great attraction of Siem Reap is Angkor. Once an abandoned city consisting of massive temple after massive temple, the largest and most famous - Angkor Wat. It may be familiar to some as this site is where Angelina Jolie donned her green skimpies for the blockbuster Tomb Raider. We watched the sunset apon a hill on our first day and decided to get up at 3:45 the next morning to watch the sunrise. Hired bikes for the day and set off in complete darkness. Two months into the tour and the first time we actually needed our torches both of us forgot so had to cycle down some very questionable roads without being able to see our hands infront of our faces. We got lost, but then, a miracle! Just as with the 3 Wise Men in the story of Jesus our path was shown unto us by a mysterious light in the sky. The only difference being that instead of a guiding star provided by the good Lord, we had the FujiFilm flashes of two and a half thousand tripod-wielding Japs. Still, it seemed to do the trick and Im sure you will agree it was worth the effort.

Wats by the lake?

So with Cambodia under the belt it was time once more to crack out the passports and board a 12 hour bastard bus ride. Not for the first time the bus company over booked and I basically had to share a non-airconditioned seat with a sweaty Chinese girl who certainly knew where the spring rolls were kept, but as the lessons of Cambodia taught us there are more important things to worry about.

So into Thailand then, but with great care because as the ancient saying goes 'Man who passes into Thailand sideways going to Bangkok'.