Muine

I've been in a little fishing/beach town called Muine for the last few days. It's a super cool pretty chill place. Kite surfing is huge here, and it's driving me mad!! All I want to do is try it, figure out a way to get involved....but I just can't justify it. It's stupid expensive to try (like $200 for a couple hours on the water) and I know the first part won't even be rewarding, it'll just be learning. So then I started scheming a way to buy a whole kite surfing set up....then I realized now is not the time in my life to start a new expensive sport. So frustrating cuz it looks amazing! Mark my words, some time in my life I'll be into kite surfing...yup.

Today I rented a motorbike and checked out the town....man there are a lot of fishing boats here! I searched a little deeper and found a huge operation of sardine type fish, it's everywhere!! Then I checked out the sand dunes, there are red and white. I hired a rough neck kid named Chuong (he sat on the back of my rented motorbike) to show me around both sand dunes, take me sand sledding, and show me the waterfall. The sand dunes were cool, although I'm much too heavy to slide on the sand carpets...so I would just jump off the little cliffs instead. The waterfall was lame, but the journey there was cool. Had a good time with wee little Chuong.

The harsh part of the day was yet to come. I got into a nasty motorbike accident just a few hours ago. I was taking a left turn, and some dude smoked me on the left side trying to pass me in the oncoming traffic lane. He hit me pretty hard, the next thing I knew I was flying through the air...and my bike was too. The only thing I was thinking was "crap....there is no insurance on this bike!". Luckily (thanks God) I was ok. My arm is swollen and my hand my have a fracture...but other than that I'm good! Some Vietnamese locals saw it happen and made sure I was ok, then a huge yelling match errupted in Vietnamese. About 20 Vietnamese people were gathered around checking out the accident scene for about 1/2 hr, one old guy got so mad at the guy who hit me that he took away the guys keys! I think the guy was going to leave the accident, and I think the old guy wasn't having it, he knew it wasn't my fault. I thought we were waiting for the cops to show up....but after about 1/2 hr everyone left....including someone with my bike! (it was in like 3 pieces). I just hung out with a family at the scene for a while...they didn't speak any English. Some guy came up after and said they took my bike to fix, that they would bring it to my guest house tomorrow. Who knows...I have no phone #'s or names of anyone who took my bike....I'm just hoping for the best...that it comes to me tomorrow fixed...cuz the guy I rented it from is coming tomorrow to pick it up in the morning and he doesn't speak a ton of English. I'm going to have to communicate a crashing noise to him...hahahahaha....really not that funny. I hope I don't have to pay for anything. I really think the old guy at the scene argued so much that it was the other guys fault...and now he has to pay for my bike to get fixed. I was talking to an English couple who live in HCMC and they said that almost always once the police get involved, the foreigner always has to pay for both vehicles...even if it's not their fault. We shall see. I'm just lucky to have walked away from this thing.

A crap load of fishing boats!


Yeeehhaaawwww!!





Me and my roughneck friend - Chuong.


Strange scene.


Lotsa little fish.


This one made me laugh.

Chu Chi Tunnels

Checked out a place called Chu Chi Tunnels today, in the HCMC area. During the war the Vietnamese people built a network of tunnels to fight the Americans. Watched a little documentary old film first....man do they ever hate the Americans. During the film they said that the Americans were "like crazy devils" because they bombed schools, farming villages, etc. Also they said that the Vietnamese soldiers were often young girls "filled with hatred for the Americans because the slaughtered her family". They told stories of a few Vietnamese who won the "American Killer Hero" award....crazy....I guess it's not all in the past?

The tunnels were genious and the way they fought was genious. The tunnels were SO small, but then again...so are the Vietnamese people. The tunnels we saw were made bigger for tourists...but even still they were scary small. Apparently they had over 200km of tunnels linking together, and 3 different levels. Even the way they cooked was brilliant: They devised a series of chambers for the smoke, eventually escaping into the open at least 300ft from the actual kitchen. They did this so that if the Americans saw the smoke and bombed, it wouldn't be close enough kill anyone....but even still they only cooked very early in the morning, and late at night. It was cool the see. Also we saw all the different kinds of war tactics they used, and all the booby traps they set....kind of cool.

We got to go into the tunnels if we wanted and travel underground until the next entrance. Honestly it was messed up, it was so dark in there, only the little red target light from my camera enabled me to see where I was going.


Booby trap suckas!


One of the tunnel entrances.


Wow...this is a tiny entrance. WHAT?!?! You want me to get in there? Sure!


Ok...ok...ok...easy does it...


Ouch! Damn small Vietnamese entrance...


Can't imagine these things before they made em bigger.


Cool beans.

Mekon Delta River trip

Took a two day/one night tour of the Mekong Delta River. I opted for the "homestay" (staying at a locals home) which was an awesome choice. The tour was so-so, kind of cool, kind of boring at the same time. When most of the people went to a guest house to sleep, 3 of us got on another boat and cruised to the locals home while the sun set. The family was super nice, spoke a bit of English. They served us food and the two little girls gave us a singing karaoke show....the highlight :) The next day we checked out a cool floating market...basically just a bunch of boats gathered in one area selling different foods etc. We also saw a bunch of other places: Coconut candy workshop, rice paper production, rice factory...and more. A pretty cool trip.















Floating market

Rice papaer production

Rice paper production

Viet-freakin-nam. Ho Chi Minh

Took a long bus ride from Sihanoukville Cambodia, all the way to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) in Vietnam yesterday. I could hardly sleep the night before so I was hoping to sleep on the bus. I met a lady from Quebec on the first bus to Phonm Penh, so we talked most of that ride....no sleep. I sat beside a crazy but hilarious 45yr old snowboarder from Kelowna on the way to Ho Chi Minh....no sleep. Arrived in Ho Chi Minh exhausted. It's a cool busy city, tons of traffic....but I can tell I'm going to like Vietnam already. Heading on a 2 day Mekong Delta river trip tomorrow. Oh yeah, I got my head shaved today....exciting business.


My first head shaving.
Uuhhh...more of "Safety First"


Wicked awesome water puppet show in HCMC.





No comment.

Sihanoukville

Serendipity beach


I've been in a place called Sihanoukville for almost a week now. It's a beachtown, not quite as nice as the beaches in Thailand, but not as crowded as Thailand....and super chill. Haven't been doing much here, just relaxing on the beach and organizing my days around food (who has an all you can eat, where and what time...etc....hard work trying to keep up with all of it I tell you). The only things I've really done is taking a snorkeling trip to a few islands, breakfast and lunch included....all for $10. Today I rented a motorbike and toured around, ended up in some really cool rural places. Although I lost the key to the bike (along with my room key, the pad lock key for the bike...and a few more) as it just fell out while I was driving on some backroads somewhere. The guy tried to charge me way too much for replacements, but instead of getting mad I just calmed him down and went over the real replacement costs....ended up being an extra $3...I'm getting way too good with this!! :) This place is littered with sex and drugs though. You can't walk anywhere without being offered a motorbike...then something to smoke....then hookers. Everyday, about 15-20 times a day. They get so lazy all they ask is "you want something?"...hehehe, ridiculous! My time is up in Sihanoukville, heading to Ho Chi Minh the day after tomorrow. Here we come Viet-fricken-Nam!



Bamboo island, snorkel trip


Snorkel junky.


A kid fishing using a plastic pop bottle and some line attached to a rock....brilliant!



Motorbike trip


Picture taken at a temple on my motorbike trip.


Ugghhhh....yikes....maybe on my mountain bike??

More Cambodia Pics

Chinese New Year

Crazy restaurant in Siem Reap where you can feed their crocodiles....

Random gas station on the way to Phnom Pehn....are the cows waiting for a fill up??

Obviously meets "foodsafe" standards.

We are famous!!

Royal Palace

Sebastien and Eva.
I will miss these two.....French-Canadian couple I travelled with for about a week.

Killing Fields - Phnom Pehn

Cambodia has a messed up history. Khmer Rouge forcefully took the spot of government after the country was in shambles due to the destruction from the war between the US and Vietnam. The people thought this might not be so bad, but were soon forced to work in fields....everybody. They cut off Cambodia from the rest of the world, and from eachother. No mail, no flights, no media, they even abolished currency. They wanted Cambodia to be run by farmer type mentality, this meant anyone with education were sent to prison (later to be executed). Anyone who spoke another language, had any sort of education, had a good job...they even sent anyone who whore glasses. There were prisons set up where interrigations were completed to find out if these people had any family, they were tortured for days. The worst part of the reign of the Khmer Rouge was when Pol Pot was in power. He started killing his own army and government because they had advanced too high....crazy.

In all there were 343 execution sights, Phnom Pehn has the most famous one. During the 4 year reign of the Khmer Rouge hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were executed, and many many more died through starvation (everyone worked in fields, only the smallest portions of food were granted). In all about 2 million Cambodians died during this time. Apparently the rest of the world did nothing about it because they didn't know what was going on....but 4 years???....that's a long time for the rest of the world to sit back and do nothing. In the end Vietnam came to their rescue, but much too late.

Being in these places was good to see, but really eerie and creepy....even depressing.