It was great to get out of the Mekong Delta for a while, the best parts were being able to get Western food again (Vietnamese food is pretty good but I do miss Western food sometimes - especially tuna, mayo and salad sandwiches for some reason), visiting another country and going swimming in the ocean.
Ho Chi Minh City really turned it on for Tet, one of the main streets in District 1 was closed off for a massive flower display. There were an impressive amount of orchids, camellias and even roses. There was even a flower ferris wheel and a giant ball of flowers that looked like it might roll off its stand and onto the street, crushing everyone and everything in its path. There were also a lot of tiger statues to celebrate the coming of the new year of the tiger (though Dan didn't cotton onto that connection until about a week later...hmmm).
Despite the flowery, loving vibe of it all, Dan and I managed to get told off 3 times by security guards. We walked down one side of the street to see the display then when we went to go back up the other way we got told we weren't allowed to walk that way - apparently it was a one-way system - though no-one else was following it! So we went back the way we came for a little bit then went back over onto the other side again (we didn't want to walk past what we had already seen again!). Then I took a photo of Dan with one of the tiger statues and we got told not to touch the displays (Dan was pretending to scratch the tiger on the chin). Then we got told not to walk up that side of the street again. So we gave up then and went and went to a cafe for a cold drink - it was very hot out in the street in the sun!
After a few days in HCMC we took a 7hr bus ride to Phnom Penh where we visited S-21 - an old school that was used as a prison and interrogation/torture centre during Pol Pot's rule. It was pretty horrific to hear some of the stories about what went on in there. Only 7 of the thousands of prisoners who were sent there survived, it is so hard to understand how people are able to do these kinds of things to one another! S-21 was really quite heart-breaking, also sad is seeing the huge disparity between the rich and poor in Cambodia and hearing the stories of rampant corruption. I guess heaps of countries have these problems but it seemed a lot more visible in Cambodia. As an example, there are a lot more cars on the roads in Phnom Penh than in the cities in Vietnam, big expensive luxury cars too, whereas the only other traffic is old, overladen motorbikes and bicycles (noticeably less numbers of these than in Vietnam too).
To stop this post from getting too despondent or lecture-y I'll move on to our time in Sihanoukville. Sihanoukville was like an entirely different world. It is like Cambodia's version of Byron Bay - full of bars, cafes, restaurants and tourists. But mostly it is full of backpackers. Sihanoukville is famous as a beach destination, but the beach itself is pretty much non-existent - it has been overrun with rows of cafes and bars extending nearly into the ocean itself. The cafes and bars are built right on the sand (which is eroding away in some places), they have set up deck chairs right up to where to waves come onto the shore - if you buy a drink or something at the bar you can sit on the deck chairs. There isn't much beach that hasn't been colonised by a bar or restaurant! It wasn't the nicest beach, there was a lot of rubbish floating around and a few raw sewage outlets leaking into the water - right where people were swimming! But we stayed away from those areas and went up the end where the rubbish didn't wash up and it was ok. It was nice to go swimming at the beach again and see water that wasn't dirty Mekong-mud brown.
The best bit of Sihanoukville though was the food - most places had a $3 bbq every night with fresh seafood. We had bbq barracuda, prawns and squid which came with coleslaw and bbq potato - so good! Those bbq dinners could nearly be the highlight of my holiday!
The journey back to Soc Trang was pretty exhausting. The bus from Sihanoukville to Ha Tien (in Vietnam - right near the Cambodian border) was pretty tiring - it was only 5 hours but a lot of it was on dirt roads and the bus was pretty old and had no suspension - bumpiest bus ride ever! Dan and I are now back at work (though a lot of people are still away on holidays) and are settling back into our old routines. Exciting news though - we now have a gas cooker and a pot and a fry pan! We'll be able to start cooking Western dinners again! Huzzah!
Flower festival in HCMC - I didn't mean to pull the same face as the tiger!
The giant ball of flowers
Don't touch the tiger Dan!
Sihanoukville early in the morning - so none of the deck chairs or backpackers are out!
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