ahhh sweat Dalat

20 02 2010

After two days in Dalat we absolutely love the town.  First of all the town is high up in the highlands (1,475 m.) and the weather is cooler than by the coast.  We have had between 20-25°C during the day with a slight breeze and a bit cooler in the night so you don’t have to worry so much about the heat and sweat and bugs and drinking enough water so this is a wonderful retreat from the sometimes too hot sun – its kind of like Húsavík in the summer time ;)

Today is the last day of the Tat (Chinese New Years celebrations).  Dalat has been packed with Vietnamese tourists and difficult to get hotel here but the crowds are quieting down today.  The traffic here in Vietnam and in Cambodia as well is very chaotic to say the least.  To cross the street you just have to walk out, even if there are plenty of bikes and cars going past as there will never be an empty street for you, and you just have to go one step at a time and make sure the drivers notice you and can either pass behind you or in front of you.  The drivers are constantly using the horn and the noise can sometimes drive us crazy but at least there seem to be few accidents and the drivers are really engaged, not on the phone, fixing the makeup or looking at the scenery like we do in the West.

Elínborg and I haven’t completely agreed on how good the Vietnamese cuisine is.  I am loving it, it is quite different form the Thai – more variety and more exciting thins to try, but Elínborg has been a bit unlucky and is not as enthusiastic as I am.  I’ve had a wonderful fish in caramel sauce prepared in a hot clay pot, fantastic pork ribs in ginger curry, beef phó with bean sprouts and a few other excellent dishes.

Yesterday we wondered around town and went to the flower garden.  It is a bit strange being with all the Vietnamese tourists.  All the sales booths are directed towards them and we are mostly left alone.  People stare a lot though, which is strange since Vietnam receives over 4 million tourists per year.  The stuff that is sold on the streets is very different from Thailand and Cambodia, to us it just seems all so tacky here – maybe it is just we that are tacky ;)

Today we rented a bike for two and rode out to see the Crazy House and the kings summer palace.  Crazy house is crazy alright, build by a Vietnamese architect educated in Moscow.  The house has a Gaudi feel to is and the pictures may say more than any words.  It doesn’t seem like the architect followed any architectural rules when designing it and the result is fascinating.  The summer palace was definitely a big hit with the Vietnamese that were there in big groups.  The palace was build for King Bing Dao that sat at the throne before WWII and was finished in 1938 and is more or less how he left it.  We weren’t that impressed but it was a nice tour never the less.

I have seen that there are more people from Húsavík checking out the blog now.  I thank www.640.is for mentioning the blog.  I can just tell you that even though Dalat is wonderful – Dalat is no Húsavík :)  All the best to all of you guys!  More on Dalat tomorrow  …or the next :)


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Phnom Penh – the sad part

10 02 2010

Today we started the day early and went to the biggest market in town – Psar Tuol Tom Pong or The Russian Market.  This is a local market for local people, selling things that the local people need like food and groceries, scooter parts, stationary, baby clothes and the like and then they throw in some tourist stalls with silk, statues, watches and jewelry.

We came equipped with a map and saw that they had food in the middle of the market.  We hadn’t had any breakfast so we went straight for the food section thinking that this would be a nice, cozy food court – something that reminded of a western mall.  Of course we were dead wrong.  The food section contained butchers with whole chickens, chopped down pork and whole fish.  Since we were early the sellers were still chopping away and cleaning their products so you had to watch out not to get covered in guts and blood – it reminded me a bit of my days at the Húsavík slaughterhouse.

After some search we found where they were offering cooked food and grabbed delicious waffles for breakfast.  We walked through the maze of stalls for a couple of hours but didn’t see anything that we fancied carrying in our bags for the next month.  We therefore headed towards the horrific Tuol Sleng or S-21 prison turned into a genocide museum.

Tuol Sleng was a high school until the Khmer Rouge, under Pol Pot, turned it into the notorious Security Prison 21 (S-21).  The majority of the victims buried in The Killing Fields were prisoners at Tuol Sleng.  After the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 it was made into a genocide museum, displaying the horrific things that went on during the Khmer Rouge regime.  The museum stands as a constant reminder of the past in the hope that those things can never happen again.

The museum hasn’t been changed much since it served as a torture prison and we were able to walk around the whole site.  The prison cells still had the original beds, chains and even blood stains on the floors and ceilings.  The torture instrument were still present and signs and pictures showed how they were used.  This museum leaves no one untouched and seeing the pictures of the victims made it all so real – I don’t think any other place I’ve been to has given me such negative vibes as S-21.  It is impossible to understand how and why such things can happen – and not that long ago.

We had decided to stay in Phnom Penh until we can enter Vietnam on the 13th of February but changed our minds and are now going to Sihanoukville in the morning where we will have beaches and relaxation again.  We are also trying to set up our route so that the Chinese new year on the 14th won’t hinder us too much.


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Phnom Penh – the fancier part

10 02 2010

Phnom Penh is leaving us exhausted.  It is dirty, it is loud, the traffic is chaotic and we are constantly being asked if we need a tuktuk and if not – do you need one tomorrow, Sir?  – why not? – how about The Killing Fields, Lady – I give you good price? 

While we were very impressed by how the Thais would allow us to look at the items they were selling and we had the feeling that we were buying stuff rather than being sold stuff, the Cambodians are constantly trying to sell us things so we take care not to stop too long looking at things unless we are serous about buying.  If we linger too long, they start pulling out all sorts so stuff we had no interest in and try to get us to buy something …anything.

Yesterday we went to see the National Museum, next to the Royal Palace.  It contained mostly artifacts from the Angkorian era taken from around Siem Reap but also a few pre-Angkorian artifacts as well as later stuff.  The museum it self is in a beautiful building that by it self is worth the visit.  The museum was kind of small and took maybe a couple of hours to see everything, which is quite surprising considering the long and eventful history Cambodia has but I guess the ministry of culture does not have too much funds – the money is needed elsewhere.

After the National Museum we headed across the street to see the Royal Palace.  Admission was a whopping $6 per person – we were hesitant but went in anyway (yes, we’ve gotten so cheap by now :).  There were only two buildings that were available to us, the coronation room and The Silver Pagoda.  The Silver Pagoda is famous for the 500 kg of silver that decorate the floor of the temple and the two Buddha statues, first a 90 kg solid gold man-sized statue decorated with over 2,000 diamonds and a smaller a small 17th century baccarat crystal Buddha.  The buildings were nice but we felt that there was something lacking – it seemed like they were trying to make the numbers rather then creating a balanced and beautiful space.  Unfortunately photography was not allowed in those two buildings. 

We were allowed to take photos in the shrine or temple that amused and intrigued me the most.  In that temple a sacred cow was worshipped.  We have all read about the Hindus considering cows (like all other life forms) to be sacred but to see a cow on the altar is something different.

The Khmer cuisine hasn’t kept the promise it made on our first night in Siem Reap.  I think that was our best meal in Cambodia so far.  They have a lot of noodle and rice dishes but the curries are not as hot as in Thailand and there is some ingredient they use that we are not loving so we are looking forward to trying something new in Vietnam.  We can even admit that we have had pizza once and a chicken burger once, not bad though for over three weeks of travelling?

I’ll tell you about our day today, when we went to the biggest market in town and the gruesome S-21 prison, in my next post.


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Siem Reap

4 02 2010

We have absolutely fallen in love with the Cambodians or the Khmers …at least here in Siem Reap.  They are so soft and gentle and polite and always smiling.  We had read so many stories of scams in Cambodia and it looked so dirty and unappealing at first that we were a bit worried but even when they are trying to trick us they are so nice :)

The Khmers are a bit darker than most Thais and a little more delicate and very handsome. It is funny how both of us connected the word Khmer to something bad after the Khmer Rogue and Pol Pot but we noticed that the Cambodians are where proud of being Khmer …well the 90% that are actually Khmer.  So Khmer is just the name of their ethnic group.

We have had some Khmer food already and it was absolutely fantastic.  We had some chicken curry, fish curry and spring rolls and everything was served with rice and a cold beer.  The spring rolls were just good spring rolls but the curries where to die for.

We went to the markets here yesterday and they looked wonderful, both the day market and the night market.  The night market was filled with silk and cotton scarves, pasminas, hammocks and clothes and they also had a lot of things made by Cambodian artists, both paintings and sculptures, mostly from the Angkor temples and the villages around here.  We are definitely feeling the biggest fault of being a backpacker – not having enough space for all the things we want to buy and having to carry everything we do find space for for the next three months.

It is funny how everything here is quoted in US dollars.  There is the Cambodian Riel but we have not seen in used on price tags anywhere.  For $1 you get 4,200 riel so that might be one of the reason but it must be hard for them not to use their own currency that fluctuates according to their economic situation not because of some outside reasons.  They must be suffering now when the dollar has been declining when they shouldn’t be.


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From one island to the next

25 01 2010

It was with great regret that we left The Island View Cabana at Ao Mae Haad. Not only were we saying good-bye to a great beach town and a great resort with very entertaining Burmese waiters, we were leaving the wonderful Ko Phangan and saying good-bye to our Canadian friends, Isabelle and Kyle. We hope though that we will see them again in a couple of days in Krabi, before they head down to Malaysia.

With Isabelle and Kyle from Canada

With Isabelle and Kyle from Canada

We on the other hand took the ferry to Ko Samui, the biggest island of the three we have visited and most westernized. On Ko Samui you will find an international airport, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut and a lot of fancy resorts for package travelers. It had worked so well for us on Ko Phangan to go against the stream that we headed away from the main beaches on the east coast and took a taxi towards the west coast. This time we weren’t as lucky as before and didn’t find the town we ended in too exciting. We therefore took another taxi to the east coast and ended in the town where the main port is located.

...we're on the road again...

...we're on the road again...

Yesterday we managed to try three of the five types of taxis that we have seen here in Thailand. First we took the “regular” taxi to the port in Ko Phangan. The regular taxi is a pickup truck where the passengers go in the back with the luggage. If you are lucky there are benches on both sides and some sort of a roof, other times it is just the naked back side of the pickup (what ever that is called :). From the port in Ko Samui we got a party van with a huge stereo, disco lights and an mp3 player and to the port town we got a motor taxi, which is just a scooter and a driver (we needed two sets ;). The driver managed to put the bag between his legs and we jumped on in the back. The other two types that we haven’t tried yet are the normal yellow taxi and a tuk tuk, which is a motorbike with three wheels and has a bench for two in the back.

The night market

The night market

Last night we went to the food market down by the peer. The market consists of maybe 40 booths, each selling its own specialty. To name a few of the dishes the booths were offering they had:

  • Fried chicken either whole with the head and everything or single pieces (definitely something for you Deepak and Bob)
  • Grilled chicken and duck on a spear with the hearts, liver or feet available on a spear as well
  • Fried noodles with pork, chicken, beef, shrimp, crab or fish
  • Grilled squid or white fish of all sorts
  • Sausages or hot dogs made of pork, chicken or tofu
  • Some kind of meat balls made all sorts of ingredients
  • All kinds of different curries with rice or noodles (red, green, masman, etc.)
  • Dumplings with curry, fish or meets
  • All sorts of juices and shakes
  • Crepes with bananas or chocolate
  • Jelly and cakes and rice boiled in syrup and sesame essence
Fried chicken

Fried chicken

Different types of curries

Different types of curries

Jelly and other desserts

Jelly and other desserts

Coconu custard

...and our favorite - Coconu custard

…and a lot of other stuff that we didn’t really recognize. We finally settled on a box of fried chicken, a couple of spears of grilled chicken and meat balls and for desert we had the rice boiled in syrup and sesame and some sort of fried coconut pudding. Everything except the meat balls was absolutely fantastic and ended up costing us 120 baht with water or less than $4 all in all. We are planning to go again before we leave and hopefully we will be even more adventurous.

The meatballs waren't so nice :)

Everything except the meatballs was very nice :)

You need rest

You need some rest when you are full :)

ps. can someone update me on the Tiger Woods story ???  Are they back togeather?  Is he dating someone else?  Did she break is jaw with the 9-iron? Is she dating Björn from Abba? Is he a ladyboy (well he is half Thai)?


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Little piece of heaven

21 01 2010

We have never thought of our selves as beach loving people and we have always said that we would not want a beach kind of holiday. Now we have been here on the islands for seven days just laying on the beach sunbathing, snorkeling and swimming in the sea and we are absolutely loving it! I don’t think that we have changed but that now we are not in a hurry while on holiday, we have plenty of time and it is not a choice between the beach and something else. Going on a beach OR exploring an exciting city. Going on the beach OR checking out that great museum. Now we have plenty of time to do all the things we want to and it doesn’t have to be either or. We are also getting relaxed about not having a plan to follow. We have a rough (big) plan in our mind but we just decide from day to day where to go and where to sleep. When we have traveled before everything has been organized, all accommodation booked beforehand and the most events set. It is quite liberating not to follow a plan but needed some time to get used to.

Ko Maa Island connected to Ko Mae Haad by a sand reef

Ko Maa island connected to Ko Mae Haad by a sand reef

We are now in Ao Mae Haad on the North West corner of Ko Phangan. This is definitely the best place we have visited so far. It is a bit off the regular tourist track and not many tourists are staying here. During the day it is very busy though since many people seem to come here for day trips. The beach is about 1 km long and there is a large island just off shore and is connected to our beach with a sand reef on the low tide. Everything is very cozy and nice: the people, the environment and our bungalow.

Ao Mae Haad

Ao Mae Haad

We met up with a very nice Canadian couple in Haad Yao that were also on their way to Mae Haad so we joined forces. We had seen them on the bus from Bangkok so we started chatting. They are also on a long trip here in Asia. From Thailand they are heading towards Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia so we probably won’t see them again after Ko Phangan but you never know. He has been a couple of times in Thailand so he has given us some tips and suggestions. It is always great to catch up with people that are doing similar things as you are doing.

We have both taken great interest in snorkeling, anything else is difficult given the opportunities that we have here. We have only had to swim 100 meters from the shore to be surrounded by colorful coral and fish beyond believe. We have been snorkeling at a depth of one to four meters in absolutely clear waters and seen maybe forty different types of tropical fish: green, yellow, blue, red, black, white, translucent, striped, spotted, octagonal and solid. Today we spent so much time snorkeling that both of us have sunburn on the parts that stick up when staring down into the water (just check in the bathtub which parts those are).

We have not eaten at a restaurant where the menu has been shorten than seven pages and the restaurant at our resort is no exception. Just to give you some examples is has 14 different fruit shakes and 16 different juices that they list. For breakfast they have 22 different types of roll toast, 13 baguettes and 7 different types of pancakes. For main course they have 16 salads, 30 different types of fried rice, several kinds of macaroni, spaghetti, noodles, fried noodles and so on and so on. On top of all this they have something called Noname – 10 different types. Noname looks like the leftovers from last night mixed together and deep-fried and like everything else deep-fried is tastes very good. These huge menus are therefore quite scary for people with decision anxiety but we have managed so far :) But all in all the food here has been wonderful and almost everything that we have tasted had been top notch.

The massage parlour

The massage parlour

We went for a massage today. Elínborg had a conventional head, neck and shoulders massage and I had a Thai massage. The Thai is based on stretches and pinches without oil rather then conventional strokes. It is quite rough but very relaxing at the same time. Below you can see the price list for massages. 100 Baht are about $3.

The price list

The price list

The clock is almost 22 now when I’m writing this so it is well past our bedtime :) Therefore I won’t have this long for now. All the best….

– Ö r n and E l í n b o r g –


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