Jeep Tour and flight to Cambodia - Day 7

Up early again, which makes sense given I was asleep by 7:15pm last night.  I woke up at 3:30 and then dozed until about 5am.  We need to be up and out in the lobby for our tour today by 8am so we got up, packed up 99% of our bags so that when the tour is over at 11am we can be ready and down in the lobby for 11:45am for the departure to Cambodia today.

Breakfast - the fruit here is so fresh.

lol, this is Jo.  Jo knows Brad D'Ornellas who is a local real estate agent as well.  When we were talking about where we were from they knew that Brad was from somewhere around Uxbridge (Port Perry) and works in real estate as well - so today I took a photo of Jo and I and sent Brad a message saying "I'm on vacation with PJ's parents!".  Small world.  Jo is an absolute riot.

When we got downstairs we ran into Timi and I said I needed to get her number so that I can let her know if we're grabbing food or a drink or anything and she said she's been thinking of us too and wants us to go visit her in AZ this winter when it's cold out!

We gathered in the lobby and then were hustled out to the street where 5 Russian Jeeps were waiting, open air but with cloth tops.  Our main Guide introduced himself as Chung "but you can call me..Tony".  He went through some rules and then said my main job is to bring you back alive.

We were in a car with Timi, Cheryl and Steve.  Our individual Jeep's Guide was named Ben.  Ben spoke very good English and I asked him at one point how long he had been speaking and he said about 3 years.  3 years!?!  I asked how he learned to speak so well in just 3 yrs and he said "Netflix". OMG. He said now, for the last 6 years, English is now taught at the schools starting at age 8 (Grade 3).

This is a motor scooter battery swap station.  It takes 5 second to swap out your battery and Tony pays $2 a month for unlimited swaps.  It lasts him about 3 days.

Our first stop of the tour is Train Street where you sit on the edge of the track at a cafe while the train goes past (which it seems to about every 30 minutes starting at 8:50am.

My complimentary drink I chose a Vietnamese Salt Coffee w Ice

As we were waiting, we arrived about 25 mins before the train, we were introduced to local sellers.  There were printed canvas bags, cut out pop-up greeting cards and women selling magnets.  Seems they do an ok business there as a bunch of people were purchasing.

Tony said before we leave you can use the washroom at the cafe "but its' not the best".  Mom said she didn't need to now but would there be washrooms later on in the tour? and he replied "they're even worse".  He wouldn't recommend those ones as they're Asian Squat toilets.

The traffic here is insane, I've mentioned it before but essentially no one ever stops.  If you're turning left, if you're turning right, if you're going straight you just keep going (slowly) but never stop. We have commented a few times that we haven't seen any accidents yet so asked Ben if they're common and he said "you'd have to be very lucky to see an accident".

We went off the beaten path to an area for local for shopping for scooter parts.

This little guy was so cute.  He was beside us at the stop light prior and all smiles (his Mom noticed us smiling at him and took down his mask).  Timi passed him one of the colourful magnets that she had purchased on Train Street and he waved at us as we drove by again.

During the drive I asked Ben about the fresh fruit we have had at all our meals because it's all so good.  Is it all grown here in Vietnam and he said yes from the watermelon to the grapes and dragon fruit it's all grown here.  Except maybe apples if we have apples and they're large they're from the US.

Two reasons I took this photo.  1) the electrical is a nightmare and 2) the speaker on the top of the building broadcasts the national news in the mornings early.

Tony took us through this residential area to the home of Mrs Tinh.  4 years ago he came to this area and asked a number of residents if he could bring tours through and she was the only one who said yes.  Here we are in her home - this is everything, this one room is her bedroom and living room. 

Her kitchen is outside and used to be communal as is her washroom, which also was communal but she is the only one now who uses it as everyone else now has kitchens and baths inside their apartments.

Mrs Tinh is 87 years old.  She receives 650,000 dong from the Government in assistance payments per month and her rent is 2,000,000 dong.  The rest comes from her family.  Her son gives her 2M and her daughter gives her 2M per month and that is what she uses for food and rent.  Her rent hasn't been increased by her landlord in 20 years because she used to babysit the owner. Her children live just 1Km away and have a camera set up in the corner to keep an eye on her.

Tony said his job is to keep her from smoking but Timi said "I saw a pack outside"  He looked at Mrs Tinh in shock and she looked a little chagrinned and waved him off.  Busted.

Kitchen, out in the courtyard

After visiting the local home we went for our last stop to try traditional Egg Coffee.  On the way there Ben was asking about Canada.  He asked about Moose and we told him yes, we have moose but I've never seen one (I think he was disappointed), he asked about Bears as well.  We talked about the weather and how cold it is in Toronto today (I think it was 12 degrees) and he said that in Vietnam if the weather is colder than 10 degrees they don't have school because there is no heating.  So as a boy he would wake up, check the temperature and if it said 9 degrees he would go back to sleep.

    

Egg Coffee

Egg Coffee is a Vietnamese specialty made with egg yolk, sugar, honey and vanilla.  In 1946 the inventor, Mr Giang, was a barista at the Sofitel Hotel (where we are staying) and he wanted to make a Vietnamese version of the cappuccino.  In 1890 the French brought coffee to Vietnam and they had cappuccinos, but most Vietnamese don't have milk.  So he took egg yolk along with the sugar, vanilla and honey and whipped it until it was frothy and then pour strong coffee over it to create a cappuccino without milk.  Honestly, it was delicous.  But its' 8:45pm and I'm still regretting my life choices today.   Between the Salt Coffee and Egg Coffee I felt jittery and had anxiety all day.  It's probably been 15 years since I've had a caffeinated espresso shot and I had multiple today (I think the Egg Coffee was probably a double shot and strong).

I didn't know Timi was taking this but she sent it to me.

I'm not sure what's going on with the formatting above but I don't care enough to fix it.

Tony thanked us all for coming and said it was because of American and European tourists that they can keep working so he really appreciates us because "Asian tourists only care about drinking, women and strong wifi".

We got back to the hotel, packed up the last of our things and headed down to the lobby to get the bus for the airport.

Once through security we were hungry so stopped at Popeyes and had lunch, lol.  I've never had Popeyes before but imagine it tasted how it's supposed to just twice as expensive because it's at the airport.

The flight was only about an hour and a half long. During the flight I sat with Kevin, from our group, he was here during the Vietnam war working in a local hospital in the Central Highlands. He and his wife, Gretchen, came a week ago and toured around the areas that he was in while he was here.  They're from AZ but originally he's from Michigan.  He was fascinating, he said a lot had changed and in his opinion the Vietnam war was useless.  It was to stop communism from spreading throughout Asia and they got in the middle of a civil war between North and South Vietnam without understanding the underlying history and, honestly, without need.

We landed and, as promised, walked through immigration as a group without stopping.  Once baggage was collected we got on the bus and met our new Cambodian Guide, Nin.  Nin is a far cry from Hieu but he's trying.  He's very monotonous but still provides good information.

He said you can use USD freely in Cambodia and, in fact, ABMs here will dispense USD.  Everyone will accept them from market vendors to restaurants.

There are 3 seasons here, Hot, Warm and Wet.  We are at the end of Wet season (we hope), the forecast has been rain so we have raincoats, umbrellas and waterproof runners.

Tomorrow we go to Anghor Wat, the highlight of the Cambodia leg of the trip.  We have to dress to cover our knees and shoulders and wear good walking shoes. There is a lot of uneven, sandy, walking with some stairs.  Take a visor, sunscreen and bug spray and they'll provide an umbrella for sun protection if you want it (we have ours so will take them, although Mom now thinks she forgot her umbrella and it's red so I haven't seen it anywhere).

The population of Cambodia is 17.2M and there are 25 Provinces.  It's a democratic constitutional monarchy with a King but an elected Parliament, the King is only head of state.  95-97% of the population is Buddhist which is the state religion.  Cambodia was under French occupation for almost 100 years from 1863-1953 so they have a lot of french influences (like Provinces).

Siem Reap is the main City with a population of 300,000 in the centre and 1.2M in the Province.  The primary occupations are agriculture and tourism.  Mainly they grow rice which is the #1 export.  In recent years though Tourism has been the number one economy in Cambodia.

The most common forms of transportation are motor scooter and tuktuk which means "moto-trailer" which can carry between 2-4 people.  Taxi transportation is by tuktuk and he warned us to negotiate the price up front, if you get in and say "Take me to Pub Street" it will cost $10USD for a $3USD trip once you get there.  All drivers speak very good english.

We got to the hotel and it's lovely.  It was about an hour drive but dark out.  Along the road the restaurants and shops remind me of Costa Rica.  They greeted us with a song and dance at reception and had our keys all ready and lined up for us.  We got to our room and it's about 7:30pm, neither of us wanted too much too big for dinner and it's a buffet restaurant tonight (and at our own cost) so we ordered a ham and cheese baguette to share in room service.

There is a special "fill a bag with laundry for $50" so we decided to refresh a bunch of our clothes - I put in a few t-shirts, bras, pants, pjs, etc.  We filled the bag to the top and called reception to have it picked up - we should have that clean laundry back today.  We have free laundry on the ship but we are here for 3 more days and my bras were sour.  It's so hot you're so sweaty and my prosthetics, while cool, are foam so I sweat even more.  You know what's not fair?  Under boob sweat when you don't have boobs!

I worked a little bit, blogged a little bit last night and went to bed around 9:30pm and read probably until about 10pm.  

I got crying calls today from both the girls - Paige had a mid-term in Psych and didn't think she did well even though she studied and Sophie paid to do a practice exam in Economics and didn't do well at it so both of them were frustrated and upset.  University is a lot different than what they were used to in high school.