I have decided to not post this part of the journey until we were home and everything was OK. Nigel’s fine and is completely on the mend. Rule for life, no point in worrying everyone while you are still overseas.

We had a jacuzzi in our room on Langkawi which is where the issue started. We had decided that the jacuzzi would make an awesome washing machine for our clothes. We’d done it before with jacuzzi’s and it works really well. Nigel was affixing the window magnetic mesh to the inlet using duct tape when he slipped and fell backwards onto a really horrific corner unit of the jacuzzi. He was in a lot of pain.

We made the call that we needed to go to have it seen to and make sure it wasn’t something spinal and so assumed we would need to go to hospital to have it checked out and so our first call was the insurance. Don’t worry we’re here to help. Call us if he gets admitted. Get receipts for anything else.

We then called reception: “we think we will need to go to a doctor or hospital” “leave it to us” they said. Next thing a team from the hotel turned up and advised they had called the ambulance. They gave an initial assessment and then waited until the ambulance arrived. They gave us a guy to accompany us to the hospital as an interpreter and the contact details of anyone else at the hotel if we needed them. When the ambulance arrived they strapped Nigel to a back board and put him in the ambulance, we then spent 50 minutes driving to the A&E. I kept telling Nigel that it was just around the next corner and that we were 10 minutes away, I’m not sure that it helped. It was an incredibly uncomfortable ride on bad roads in an old van with no suspension strapped to a backboard.

When we arrived the ambulance crew pulled the gurney out and promptly dropped Nigel down onto the ground. It was actually as horrific as it sounds. However Nigel felt that the drop put something back in place as he felt a bit better afterwards. We entered A&E and I was left to face the paperwork while Nigel was taken through the doors. The front office manager from the hotel was amazing and translated and made sure I was ok. He stayed with us every minute and helped to get me behind the doors to see Nigel. He also bought me a short customer service survey from the ambulance. Rating from 1-5 on the ambulance service? I said “I give it a 1, mainly on account that they dropped him!”

The hospital was basic, very basic. But the doctor spoke English and they sent Nigel for x rays to see if anything was broken. As it turned out there were no breaks and so he was sent on his way with a sprained muscle, 3 days of tramadol and a week of paracetamol. The whole experience cost us $80 NZD. Our front office manager organised our transfer back to the hotel and made sure we were ok. I have to absolutely take my hat off to the hotel Berjaya Langkawi Resort. They jumped into action, provided us with a full time support person. Organised transfers and food and breakfast and special pick up and delivery service. As we checked out they approached us to say “please let us know how you go, please message us, we really care”. That’s hotel service for you, the next day we were still receiving WhatsApp messages seeing how we were going and if they could be any help. We are so grateful for the help and support of the Malaysian people. Some genuinely good people at a time we needed them.

The next morning Nigel had decided that enough was enough and he just wanted to go home. I’d been thinking it too. We rang the insurance company and they needed the medical report to assess before determining the next steps for us. Key issue is the Langkawi hospital records department not open until Monday and it was Saturday. Our options were very limited and there were virtually no flights out of Asia to NZ. The insurance company also was concerned that the airlines wouldn’t let him on a flight and so their advice was to stay put. We knew that we couldn’t stay put in Langkawi as it was too remote. Literally no flights out of Asia for weeks (after our current return flight out of Bangkok). It was also very difficult to get from Langkawi to anywhere after all the ferries and most of the flights have not started back since covid.

We had a big talk, one of those you don’t often have to have talks. What do we do now? We both knew that the money didn’t matter we would pay whatever we needed to do to make the right decision for the circumstance. But there weren’t any options for us apart from the original flight. We both knew that covid would be a part of this trip we just didn’t know it was flight availability out of Asia that would be the issue. After googling all our options Nigel decided that he was making an executive decision that we would carry on with the original plans and go to Thailand where he would rest and recover on an island. When we knew we had no other option we both chose our attitude and made the decision. We would utilise all the hotel porters to carry the luggage and get the hotel transfer to meet us on arrival. Turns out it was the right decision. Nigel got gradually better every day on the island and we then took the original flight back. So off to Thailand we went. At least we had stocked up on cheap paracetamol in Vietnam.

Update: Nigel has been to the doctor in New Zealand who also said it was a sprained muscle and prescribed muscle relaxant’s, anti inflammatory’s and Physio. We are so lucky.

So we returned to Langkawi Malaysia for a second time since we left a baby Stefan with his grandparents so we could have a week off being parents. We had been working offshore for seven months and we just needed a break. We are forever grateful for our short respite and Stefan has no recollection or adverse affects from the short time away. Plus we bought him a giant Pooh Bear to make up for it so we get 10/10 for parenting.

Langkawi to us was mainly to enjoy the wildlife. Our first time we encountered so much natural wildlife in our resort and so we hoped to be able to see that again. We were not disappointed. Monkeys everywhere. The vicious macaque monkeys roamed the street but the adorable dusty faced monkey with their black faces and white eyes also loved the resort. We saw huge families taking over a hotel balcony and staying until the rain gave up. The hotel had signs saying keep your windows and door closed and locked so the monkeys don’t come in. The macaques have learned how to open sliding doors and are really cunning little shits! My immediate thought was to save the fruit from breakfast to then entice the monkeys to our balcony. I will befriend the monkeys and they will happily eat fruit from my hand. They will love and worship me and I will get a million cute photos with them. Perhaps a little grape trail from the main road?

Well that’s when Nigel completely put his foot down and unreservedly said that I was banned from tempting the monkeys. He cited a small incident in Bali years ago that we now refer to as the monkey debacle. “You cannot save the fruit from breakfast to feed to the monkeys and aside from that we did not pay to get the rabies shot”. So I did not leave a fruit trail but the monkeys came anyway. They would leap onto the balcony and violently shake the furniture to show their dominance. At breakfast after the torrential downpours the monkeys would run from the trees to the beach and off to who knows where. We saw long tailed squirrels as well dancing from tree to tree. We took a cable car to the top of the island and had some amazing views. While we were there we saw people going to buy bags of popcorn only to have a macaque leap on their head and steal it two minutes later. People would be screaming and popcorn would be flying but the macaque’s would always win.

We moved to a second resort for a couple of nights which had typical Malaysian houses for rooms. Completely open to the elements with small shutters on all the windows and a steep climb up the stairs into the room with mosquito nets and guerrilla warfare type mosquito advice. In the morning we found some massive teeth marks on our half eaten soap in the bathroom. I can only imagine what would have happened if I’d encountered whatever it was in the middle of the night. We love living with the wildlife and we’re happy to have once again been a part of it.

Manila airport is on the list of the worst airports in the world. Mainly due to the corruption but also because of the scams especially with the transportation. While we were on the ship we spoke to a number of the crew who were Filipino and asked for their advice for the airport. They all laughed and then proceeded to explain that yes it’s pretty bad but apparently it’s getting a lot better under the current president Bongbong Marcos (yes it’s Fernando and Imelda Marcos’ son).
They told us that we probably won’t have to bribe the immigration people any more but that the taxi drivers will possibly drive off with your luggage or at least charge you ten times as much as the ride is worth. Choose the coupon taxi as it’s fixed price and they write it down and that’s what you pay. Also they register the driver and so they are less likely to drive off with your luggage.
Getting to the coupon taxi booth was a right hassle though. Everyone had an official printed out badge saying they were coupon taxi (which they weren’t). The price from the first guy was 5 x as much as we knew we should pay. The next 4 x and so on until we actually got to the little booth surrounded by people saying they were coupon taxi (which they weren’t). We’ll wait for the man in the coupon taxi booth thanks!

As it turns out the advice was right. We didn’t have to bribe immigration they were actually very helpful when we realised we had to do another online health declaration, including our monkey pox status. The taxi driver didn’t drive off with our luggage and we didn’t get scammed because we used the coupon taxi and so paid the government rates. Always pays to be prepared.

The next morning we were back out to the airport to fly to the island of Boracay. We had pre organised the hotel pick up which is a must as you need to get from the tiny airport of Caticlan to the jetty on a boat for a 10 minute ride to the island and then from the jetty to the hotel. Sometimes you just need to spend the $50 to make your life easier.

Boracay is known for its beautiful beaches but also that it started to become over populated with tourists and the infrastructure couldn’t cope. At one point the island was referred to as the worlds biggest cesspit. In 2017 the government closed Boracay to all tourists for six months. They brought in the army and used the time to upgrade the water, waste and sewerage systems. They replaced all the diesel tuktuks with electric buggies and mandated that the hotels and businesses clean up their act. It was the best thing they ever did.
The island reopened just in time for covid to hit and for it to close again.

White beach Boracay is actually a really beautiful beach, so we are very glad we went Added bonus a new country for the list). White sand, clear clean blue water and lined with palm trees. No sun loungers or umbrellas to spoil it, like so many other beaches in the world. There is a beach path that separates the hotels and restaurants from the beach. So you can wander along the sand in the evenings to watch the sunset and the hundreds of small sail boats going out for a sunset cruise.
The people were lovely, the water was warm and the sunsets were incredible.
We will definitely return to the Philippines and spend more time on the other islands. Palawan, El Nido and Cebu all came highly recommended by the locals.

Then we were back to Singapore for another health declaration and a two night stay at Marina Bay Sands.We’ve both always wanted you stay there and to swim in the very instagrammable rooftop pool (was actually the most instagrammed hotel in 2017). The three towers with the ship across the top has to be one of the most recognisable buildings in the world and it’s certainly an enormous hotel with over 2500 rooms. We weren’t disappointed with an incredible view from a really lovely room and a couple of amazing swims in the pool.
Bucket list ticked.

Once our Vietnamese adventure came to an end it was back to Singapore for some clean streets, high end luxury stores and a self serve laundry which cost $8!!! Ridiculous pricing.

We then set forth on our next journey aboard the Royal Caribbean Spectrum of the Seas.

A large sized ship that currently runs 3 and 4 night cruises from Singapore for predominately Singaporean, Malaysian and Indian families.  During the Singapore lockdown these cruises went to “nowhere” and so were the only way to get out of Singapore and so were very popular. 

There were a ton of kids and some really large family groups travelling together on the ship. Apart from us the only other westerners we encountered were a family from Australia who we met at the bar. Cruises we have done previously from out of America, means that every seat at the bar is taken. Every sun lounger is claimed the minute you get on board and it’s hard to find a spot in the sun or at the bar. Not so much out of Singapore. The bars are empty. The sun loungers are empty. No one wants to drink or sunbath. Instead they want to play ping pong and badminton and ride the wave machine. They want to swim in the pools and eat all the food and basically have a great family time. That’s why it was just us and the Australians in the bar. 

We had an awesome time for five days, balcony sitting, cocktail drinking (try the floating colada) ,blackjack at the casino (came out even) and wandering about in the two ports we stopped at, Port Klang, the closest port to Kuala Lumpur and Penang a tourist mecca for short trips to Malaysia. Hot though, far out! Mid 30’s with 100% humidity is pretty gnarly when you are out walking.  

Days before we arrived to Singapore they had removed a mask requirement indoors and had also removed a requirement for a negative RAT before traveling.  The requirements around covid were changing daily so we never knew what we were going to get, masks or no masks and you never know what online health declarations you need to fill out before you arrive.

 After five days on the ship we left to go directly to the airport for our flight to Philippines. New country! Country number 83 for Jen and 85 for Nigel.  Let’s see how it goes!

OK, so it’s not the most impressive bridge that snorts fire and sprays water but it’s the only bridge I’ve ever seen that snorts fire and sprays water.

The last time we were in Da Nang we thought that the famous Dragon Bridge did it’s thing every night and so we missed it as it only happens on Saturday and Sunday nights. I think our expectations of a choreographed laser light, fireworks, fire and holograms bouncing off the water mist extravaganza of the bridge, were quietly usurped by a bridge that breathes fire and spurts water. The place was packed though for the show (which lasted about 5 minutes) It was OK.

Da Nang beach is a long and expansive golden sandy beach. It can be described as akin to Surfers Paradise (without the body builders). There is an Ibiza style dance party happening all night and in amongst it all 10 people send their traditional circular boat out with a massive net to retrieve about 2 kilos of fish total which they share amongst themselves. I think that this age old tradition probably yielded more fish back in the day but these guys keep going every night.
The sea water must be around 38 degrees or a 12 on the 1-10 Jen swimming scale. Too warm for even me to bother getting in.

It’s an area very popular with local tourists who come to swim in the sea and go to massive restaurants where you go and choose your fish or crab or lobster from huge tanks and they will cook it and shell it and basically almost feed it to you.
We didn’t get to sample any of the local seafood or local cuisine though because of a small salad and a sneezer in Cambodia.

Our fourth trip to ‘Nam didn’t go entirely to plan. We had intended on returning and spending a good amount of time in Hoi An. The cutest little Old Town in the world. You can do cooking classes and bicycle around the pedestrian and cycle only streets. There are beautiful restaurants lining the canal with amazing Vietnamese food. People come from all over Vietnam to have their photos taken as it’s one of the most picturesque places in the country. As it turned out Nigel couldn’t stray too far from the bathroom the whole time we were there and I had developed all of the covid symptoms while testing negative for covid five days in a row.

So we stayed put.

Venturing down to the pool and back to the room and back to the pool again. Thankfully our hotel had a nice pool and a really nice room with a balcony. Our plans to eat our way through the beautiful Vietnamese food had Nigel eating nothing but one bite of a croissant one day and one slice of pizza the next.

We did manage to walk to the Old Town on our last evening and it was as pretty as we remembered. We were lucky enough to arrive on the night of the lantern festival (long time readers will know from our last time that every night the locals will tell you how lucky you are that it’s lantern festival night in Hoi An). We took a million photos as the sun set. Had a really nice dinner (which Nigel later got to see all over again) watched the little ladies with their trays of fruit transform to selling paper lanterns that you light and place on the River crowded with boats taking a trip up and down with their lanterns glowing. It was a really nice evening.

It was a shame to be sick but happened at the right time for us and it didn’t really matter as we were able to laze away without having to move until we went 45 minutes by car up the road to Da Nang for a few nights.

Our last day in Vietnam Nigel was feeling a bit better and so we had some breakfast. We went for a walk down the beach, picked up our clean laundry $3 for a massive bag (I love Vietnam laundry services). Then we went and swam in the rooftop pool, lay in the shade and had $3.50 margaritas!

In sickness and in health, we choose our attitude everyday and as long as everyone remembers their smile and a good attitude, any travel day is a good day. It was a really nice way to spend our final day in Vietnam.

The Killing Fields
Warning: This post contains graphic depictions of violence and suffering against average everyday humans, it’s sad and shocking. It’s also a story that a 91 year old prisoner of the Khmer Rouge and genocide survivor asked me to tell to anyone who would listen.

So I will.

After we arrived in Phnom Penh we met our new Cambodian tour guide and translator, a really great guy 42 years old, married with five kids (got a surprise one during covid) Lives with his wife’s parents in the new part of Phnom Penh. As we walked to see the royal palace I asked him what year he was born and he told me 1980. He then said that his father had died when he was three months old from the injuries he sustained during the interrogations and torture by the Khmer Rouge. Two of his siblings were also killed. I turned to Nigel and said “oh my god, his Dad was tortured to death”. When can you say that you’ve ever said that to anyone?

It was the start of a very emotional day for me.

The Khmer Rouge was a communist political party officially the Communist Party of Kampuchea. Built up in the late 1960s and supported by the Viet Kong, the North Vietnamese and the Chinese Communist party. It was led by a particularly despicable dictator called Pol Pot. Pol Pot believed that Cambodia could become the ultimate Utopia if it followed a very extreme and strict version of Communism. This version of communism meant you all wore the same clothes (black pants , black shirt, black peaked cap and sandals made from old tyres), there was no currency, no one owned any land or anything else and you all went to work 12 hours a day to feed and clothe everyone else. He also knew that you can’t stay in power if people are educated enough to know any better and then form an opposition party. So his theory was to get rid of anyone who was a threat to his regime. He and his top ranking officials started by killing the Buddhist monks who were well educated and highly revered by the people.
In Angkor Wat the Buddhist monks in their orange robes were rounded up and taken to the main square. There as they kneeled on the ground they were shot in the back of the head by Communist China provided guns. There was one surviving witness to this massacre, a monk who had diarrhea and was still in the jungle when it happened. They then piled the bodies into a shallow grave and moved on.

Pol Pot was incredibly racist and xenophobic so the minority races didn’t have a chance. He also didn’t want anyone with an education to come up against him so got rid of them in the the first wave too. You were asked your profession at check points and if you were a doctor, teacher, engineer or anyone with an education you and your family were held at the border. They told you that they needed ‘people like you’. What that meant was an immediate death sentence, as anyone with an education was immediately sent to prison to be tortured and killed.
Our guide’s father lied when asked what his profession was, “a farmer” he said. “I only know farming”. This allowed our guide’s mother and father and four children to pass through the border without capture when Phnom Penh was forcibly evacuated in 1975.

We visited the Tuol Sleng prison, hurriedly created in 1975 from a former school with four classroom buildings surrounding a central courtyard. These buildings are now a genocide museum. Locked in time from 1979 when Phnom Penh was liberated.

The first building A was the interrogation building. We entered a room with an iron bed with shackles on it, a small desk and blood spatters on the floor, and walls and ceiling.
This is where the interrogations for days and sometimes weeks on end would happen. They would use electrocution and boiling water poured on your face to get people to confess that you were part of the CIA. If you denied it they continued with the torture, pouring battery acid down your throat or pulling your toenails out with pliers. If you admitted you were part of the CIA they would ask for the names of all of your relations and friends and then send you that night to the Killing Fields. They would then go and find all your family and friends.

The Killing Fields was an area outside of Phnom Penh where you and hundreds of others were forced to dig a large hole in the ground and then kneel on the edge of it. You were blind folded with your hands behind your back. Then the Khmer Rouge would walk along and smack everyone on the back of the head with a piece of iron and you then fell into the pit. The blow to the head didn’t necessarily kill you so it was more likely you would suffocate from the bodies that were piled on top of you.

As we entered the first torture room our guide started telling a story. Not a generic anyone story of someone at the camp, but the story of his mother and father and siblings throughout that time.
He told how the government told everyone that they had to leave Phnom Penh because the Americans were going to bomb and kill them. That they would only be away for three days so don’t bother taking your belongings (all lies). He told how the people were so happy to be leaving with such incredible support from the government. The photos taken on that day show joy and happiness on their faces as
they left.
He spoke of the days and nights of his family walking, constantly being sent in another direction than where they wanted to go. How his mother carried his sister and held the hand of his brother and his father pulled a cart with the few belongings they had.
Eventually they ended up in their home village surrounded by Khmer Rouge where even after the liberation in 1979 they were still under siege by the guerilla warfare, the land mines and the constant presence of the Khmer Rouge. That’s where his father was captured and tortured and eventually died of his injuries when our guide was three months old.

The torture rooms were also used for medical experiments on people where bleeding to death was one option they used to kill people. They would perform operations with no Anesthesia and remove organs to see what happened to people.
In the torture rooms I started to feel it… the sadness, despair, pain, horror and fear that these rooms held. As we continued through the different buildings I couldn’t shake this horrible feeling in my gut of the sadness the walls and floors had absorbed. I cried the whole time I was there it really affected me. I still cry now when I think about that feeling I had.

The next building was where the prisoners were housed in one of two types of room, the first floor was a tiny cell about the size of a person where you were shackled to the ground. These small cells all had blood on the floor and walls. Varying degrees of pooled blood stains everywhere. The other type of room was one large room where everyone was shackled to each other and then shackled to the floor. They would hose the prisoners down occasionally. But apart from being taken to be interrogated that is where you stayed in silence as it was forbidden to speak or cry or make any noise until they came and got you to go in the truck to the Killing Fields. Of course no one knew where you were being taken , you just disappeared.

The balconies outside the cells were covered in razor wire mainly to stop people being able to commit suicide. One woman still made it though after watching her son being beheaded in the courtyard.
The courtyard is also where New Zealander Kerry Hamill was burned to death after being captured off his yacht. He had been tortured for months prior to being covered in fuel and set alight. He was one of only a handful of foreigners who were housed there and we saw his photo on the wall along with the other foreigners.

There were rooms and rooms of mugshots of scared and terrified people. Cases full of skulls and examples of all the torturing tools. Babies and toddlers were also housed there but the 10-14 year olds were the ones the Khmer Rouge could train easily to kill and torture people so they were recruited immediately and indoctrinated.
Picture this, 10 year olds being taught how to kill and torture and rape. How to tie hands behind a human’s back and lower them head first into sewage. To dunk them in and out multiple times until they confessed to something that they didn’t even really know what they were confessing to.
The prisoners were given a small metal artillery box for a toilet, if they spilled anything these young kid guards would make them lick it up. The whole thing is horrific and sad and sick and only happened 43 years ago.

At the very end we had the opportunity to meet one of only seven survivors of the prison. Chum Mey is 91 years old now and has written a book about his time in the prison which I bought. He also will tell you his story through the interpreter if you want. Prior to the occupation he was a mechanic and was able to fix most things mechanical. He starts by telling how he was captured and blindfolded and brought to the prison. He didn’t know what was happening to his pregnant wife and she didn’t know where he had gone. After three days in the prison the interrogations began and lasted every day for a week. They ripped out his toenail and attached electric wires to his head to shock him. They beat him with metal pipes and wire ropes. Eventually he decided to just make up lies about his time with the CIA, a tactic most people ended up taking. His confession was almost his own death sentence as they didn’t need him anymore after he confessed and gave the names of all his friends and family. That was until the guards found out that he could fix the typewriters that they used for the confessions. He attributes this simple skill to saving his life. However he also spent most days trying to work out how to kill himself but the guards were very careful not to allow that. Chum Mey was imprisoned for three months before Liberation Day.

The day of the Liberation, as most of the guards went through the rooms and killed the last remaining prisoners he just walked free from the gates amid the chaos and so he just kept walking. He didn’t know where to go so he just kept going. About a week after he left he was in a small village and saw his wife with his son who had been born while he was in prison. It was an incredible coincidence and he couldn’t believe it. That night he heard some of the soldiers speaking about the people they had been ordered to kill, he woke his wife and they started to escape. She was shot and killed in the back and the baby was killed too. Chum managed to escape once again but this time without his wife and child.

Chum Mey was one of the lead witnesses in the 2009 trial of the surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime. After the Vietnamese liberated Cambodia in 1979 it was decided by the people that only the top officials should be punished for what happened in the war. So he went and told his story and eventually the head of the prison was sentenced to 35 years.
No one else including the interrogators, the guards or any of the Khmer soldiers were taken to court. They are still walking free amongst us all today. None of those who actually performed the acts of violence have ever been held to account for anything.

I asked him if he ever felt happiness again afterwards. He said he feels happy to tell his story and wants us to tell the story too. Please tell people in your home country about these horrors and how the Khmer Rouge killed 3 million people in my country. Please tell them everything and please make sure this never happens again.

On the bus afterwards our Cambodian guide came to say that he would leave us with our thoughts for a while but let him know if we have any questions. I told him through sobs of how sorry I was for him and his family. He said “it’s ok, we’ve processed it now and we are at peace”.

That night when Nigel and I were talking about it we both felt that there should have been some retribution to those who actually committed these human rights abuses. How could they just get away with it and carry on a normal life? Where was the justice? How could you carry on living knowing that the person who tortured you and killed your family was living in the building next door? It made no sense to us at all.

I’ll leave you with the final sentences in Chum Mey’s book.

“But I do not condemn the people who tortured me. If they were still alive today and if they came to me, would I still be angry with them? No. Because they were not senior leaders and they were doing what they had to do at the time. I consider them victims like me, because they had to follow other peoples orders. How can I say I would have behaved differently? Would I have had the strength to refuse to kill people, if the penalty was my own death? During the interrogation I was angry but after a long while, learning about that place, understanding that people had to do what they were told to do, I wasn’t angry with them any more. Even the ones who tortured me, they also have parents and family members”.

There is a saying in the Khmer language “If a mad dog bites you, don’t bite it back. If you do then that means you’re mad too”.

I’m not going to discuss the Khmer Rouge and the Genocide of 3 million Cambodians in this post. Mainly because it needs its own post but also I don’t want Cambodia to only be known for what was a particularly ugly piece of recent history.  Cambodia has thousands of years of other history and some incredibly lovely people and I believe that should be celebrated instead of being tainted by what was, in the grand old scheme of things, a short yet devastating period of time.

We reached the Vietnam Cambodia border and spent more than a few  hours just sort of floating about in no man’s land. We wondered if it was because the Cambodian border police had never seen a New Zealand covid vaccine pass. Just at the point when I started to wonder if perhaps they had changed their minds about letting us in, the engines kicked into gear and we were once again on our way.

Our first stop was Phnom Penh the biggest city in Cambodia. We walked to see the Royal Palace and then on to a Buddist pagoda, first main difference we noticed between Vietnam and Cambodia is the number of monks and also it’s way cleaner and not as chaotic as the cities in Vietnam.

There were Toucans in the trees and tuktuks in the streets. There were fruit bats and monkeys and food sellers everywhere. You can also buy genuine raybans for $7.

We learned about our new Cambodian guide’s life growing up in a small village surrounded by Khmer Rouge. He is currently 42 years old so this is not ancient history. How he would walk to school 3 miles everyday and would have to swim a river to get there. He would take off all his clothes and wrap them in a scarf to put on his head. On the other side he would get dressed again before continuing on to school. He spoke of his mother and how she wanted him to have an education and to have a better life. How he sold palm nut cakes in the afternoons after school to make extra money to support the family and how he spent 8 years at university studying Cambodian history and English to become a tour guide. Currently he is working for a construction company as the tourists stopped coming during covid so this was his first project in two years and so took time off from his other job to do it.

Again the people and especially the children were so happy to see us. The children would run outside when we came to wave and yell hello! As the boat passed they ran and laughed and waved hello. It was so special.  At one port a small group of cute kids high fived, fist bumped and hugged every one of us as we got off the boat At another stop a small boy put a tarantula on my hand without me knowing and learned his first English swear word.

We visited a school where we were able to go into the classroom of 9-13 year old kids. Our guide takes the opportunity to speak to them about the value of education and learning English and listening to their teacher. He asked a few of them to stand and speak some English. One by one the cutest little kids stood and said “hello my name is and I am X years old”. They laughed at each other and made jokes with our guide and stared at the weirdo foreigners. They all wore a white shirt and black pants or skirt and sat in the heat with only one ceiling fan working. One boy stood and in his best English told us his name and age and that he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. He was the best in the class at English. I later asked our guide what the chances are for that boy to become a doctor? He said “less than 0.5% It’s just not going to happen for a child in that village.” 

At the end we had the opportunity to donate some money to get the other fan working for them. They sang a song of national Cambodian pride to us with varying degrees of gusto and smiled when we thanked them in Cambodian. It was a really lovely afternoon. 

One of the evenings we had traditional dancers from one of the local orphanages come to our ship. They had beautiful costumes and the girls were so graceful and sweet. They can also bend their fingers backwards in a crescent shape which looks lovely but is completely impossible to do unless you’ve trained yourself from a young age. Their dances were all about myths and falling in love and all the usual things that dances are about.

Another evening they brought out a plate of fried crickets(yum), steamed silk worms (blurgh), tiny spicy frogs (yum) and some form of black beetle that you had to remove the wings and the spike inside from before eating  and so we didn’t bother. Some of the French were adventurous enough to try them but most weren’t having a bar of it. We’ve done it now don’t need to do it again.

One of the day trips was to a pagoda to be blessed by the monks. To get there and back we rode in Ox drawn carts. No suspension and thick mud, past rice paddy fields and lotus ponds. On the way there it teemed with rain so we were fairly soggy by the time we got there. But it was fine on the way back. I loved that trip so much.

We met a 70 year old man whose job is climbing palm trees to harvest palm sugar sap. He would scamper up a bamboo ladder about 15 metres and then use bamboo poles to walk between the palms. We asked if he’d ever fallen and he said once, when he was 16 and he fell the full 15 metres.  This, we were told by our guide, is a dying profession. No one wants to do it any more as it’s too scary. I guess palm sugar will be a thing of the past soon.

That’s one thing we learned about the future for Cambodia. So much of their current life is based on ancient principals of living. There is a one village one product initiative from the government to encourage villages to specialise in just one product i.e cooking stoves or pounded rice or gold jewellery. This means that the next generation are expected to take on those roles. But the kids don’t want that. They have access to the internet. They can see how others live and they don’t just accept what is given to them any more. “It’s a problem” our guide says.

And then in the blink of an eye we were in Siem Reap.  The bus pulled up outside our hotel and we said “au revoir et bon voyage” to our French speaking companions and we were on our own again. They were off for a full afternoon of temple walking and we were off to lie by the pool and drink beer. We both decided it was the quickest 10 days of our life. Loved it. 

We started our journey in Ho Chi Minh (formally Saigon) which is a more expensive and upmarket version of Hanoi. It’s full of young people with new found wealth from the tech industry and the very poor who came to make it in the big city and just didn’t.

We had booked 10 days on the Mekong and had no idea who the other people on our boat would be. We hoped they weren’t Loudees but knew we would be with the group for a while so we put on a smile and a good attitude and went to meet up with them.

As it turned out, the ship holds 44 and there were only nineteen of us in total. Yep two kiwis, one 81 year old American and sixteen French. And what that meant was that we had our own English speaking guide for just the three of us for the whole trip.

We went to the ship and the Cambodian staff (Vietnamese Captain) were so damn happy to see us as we were the first group on the ship for two years post Covid. The entire time in Vietnam was children staring and older people being very curious as to where we were from as they hadn’t seen any tourists for two years. They were so welcoming and happy to see us.

The Communist Vietnamese approach to Covid in March 2020 was to close the border and expel all the tourists immediately.  The police would arrest any westerners they found and dump them either in 21 day quarantine or at the airport.

Our tour director who is French and married to a Vietnamese woman found himself on a cruise ship like ours at the Cambodian border in March 2020 where Cambodia said you can’t come in and Vietnam said you can’t come back! So all the tourist ships (there were four) remained in no man’s land for five days while everyone worked out what to do.  They had to bribe the nearby fishing boats to bring food to the boat to feed the tourists and basically made do with what they had. That’s an event managers nightmare right there. 

It’s an incredible and probably the worst Covid story I’ve heard. It involves the military and police coming to his home ,10 months separation from his wife, a 21 day stay in an old prison for quarantine with a bucket and no running water and having food and water delivered by his father in law as the government provided nothing in quarantine.  “We did have wifi though” he says “so I caught up on a lot of movies”. 

Our ship was awesome and we quickly fell into the routine. Breakfast at 6.45, ready to go do something really interesting at 8am. Back to the boat and then either cruising or doing something else interesting in the afternoon. What we struggled with is how late French people want to eat and so by the time we’d had an 8pm dinner we were ready for bed. The French though would stay at dinner for hours.

Our Vietnamese guide and translator!

I’m not going to name him for a number of reasons that will become clear but our guy was an incredibly knowledgeable and honest guide. We developed quite a lovely relationship with him where he spoke about his family and his upbringing and how he had got to where he was now.

Self taught in English and now teaches English to the Vietnamese. Grew up with one shirt one pair of pants in the midland highlands of Vietnam. His mother would say “go and get an education and you will have better than this”. Years later when he took his mother to a five star hotel she complained there was nothing to eat at the breakfast buffet. “Where is the rice and the fish and the turtle?” She said. Each night at dinner our guide would send her photos of the fairly western food on the boat to her and she would come back with “what the hell are you eating”. She was worried he didn’t have any fish sauce.

Our first excursion off the boat was to the Cu Chi Tunnels which we had visited the last time. An incredibly interesting piece of history that shows how the Viet Cong defeated the Americans by using hundreds of kilometres of tunnels. They could trap the Americans, they could ambush the Americans and basically do everything they could to kill the Americans spirit.

Our guide explained the feelings of the Viet Cong to us like this. “When the Americans came to help us fight for democracy and freedom from the communists we asked the question. Can we eat democracy? Can we clothe our children in freedom? So why are you here? Go back to your own country and deal with your own problems”.

We also took the opportunity to fire off some rounds on an AK47 which left me with a bruise on my shoulder.  Done it now don’t need to do it again.

What the French and Americans failed to realise about the Vietnamese is that they have been fighting and winning for centuries. Multiple invasions from China and Thailand and Cambodia and the French and finally the Americans!  Each time over thousands of years the Vietnamese were able to defend their little price of incredibly fertile land. 

Our guide would tell us anything we asked about the communist government, the Vietnam war, the local beliefs and the local opinions but not when we were on the street. It’s still a communist country and so (as he kept reminding us) these opinions have consequences if anyone hears. Was so interesting to get the Vietnamese perspective on how their communist state has actually become fairly capitalist over time which is interesting.  

He also knew the English name of every fruit, fish, meat and by product there was in the market so made it a special guessing game. “What’s this”? “Grapefruit”! I would say. “No… Pomelo! Different”. “What’s this”? “Guinea pig”? I would say. “No… River rat! Different”! Most of the time I had no idea what it was and had to ask if it was an animal, vegetable or mineral. 

At one point he took us to the part of the market that specialised in live skinned frogs. The lady would sit with the frogs up and while it hopped in her hand she would strip it’s skin off and add it to a tied up group of pre skinned frogs ready to be sold fresh and ready to cook.  We found out later that the French speaking guide had actively avoided the live skinned frogs area as the French would be offended! And they are the ones who eat frog!!!!

We had an amazing Sampan ride down a small canal back to the boat one day with the cutest little Vietnamese woman who paddled at the front. She kept looking back at us with the biggest smile. We found out again we were the first tourists they had since Covid and it made her so very happy. 

We saw fish farms and pottery factories and tasted native fruits and honey. We had a Vietnamese singing show while they served us exotic fruit and tea. If you’re interested classical Vietnamese music is a mixture of tuning up a metal guitar with a slightly country theme.  Beautiful nevertheless. 

We wandered through markets and saw floating markets and the reality of how Vietnamese people live on the Mekong. 

It makes you incredibly grateful for what you have and admiring of what the people do with what they have. The very thing that we had loved about Vietnam the first time we were there. 

Last time we were in Vietnam we were sitting at an airport and kept hearing this odd sounding word as a destination. Seemed that every half an hour there was another flight there. I worked out that the destination was Phu Quoc and thought that must be nice if so many people want to go there. 

So we started our Vietnam adventure with five nights at a resort on this small island off the west coast. 

The resort has a small golden sandy beach fringed with palm trees and every morning the staff go down to pick up the bags of single use plastic rubbish that has washed up over night.  Bottles and straws and shopping bags and spoons and rain ponchos and cups and lids and everything we know is an environmental issue.  There needs to be a new word for this type of crap on the beaches it’s not flotsam or jetsam it’s just sad. Everywhere else in the complex was however spotlessly clean and maintained by hundreds of lovely staff.

It is rainy season and so everyday we would have massive downpours that cleared away and then returned an hour later.  You could just wait it out until it was fine enough to venture out. We had come prepared and so venturing out with a rain coat and quick dry sandals was easy. As the road around the resort was lined in restaurants, convenience stores and people who do your laundry for $2 it makes life in the rain easy.

The first night we had probably the best meal we’ve had in Vietnam.  Quite an upmarket Japanese Vietnamese fusion restaurant very popular with the young and fashionable new rich of Vietnam. Very instagrammable. And wasn’t cheap we spent $65! So good though that we went back on the final night where I obviously looked disheveled enough that I was presented with a hair tie before eating! That’s Vietnam for you… Odd yet understandable!?! Pretty much all the food is good in Vietnam, it’s fresh and healthy and packed with veges and fresh herbs. In one restaurant the waitress was the cook and her five year old cleared the tables. We ordered and then what turned up was completely different. “Same same” she said and it was nice and fresh and healthy so you don’t complain. Three dishes and a couple of beers for $20.

There was a buffet bbq with your own coals in the middle of the table and a pull down chimney to remove the smoke. You choose your own meats and veges and bbq them yourself. Very popular with the locals with large family groups all coming together. There were loads of side dishes that we didn’t really know what they were.  But yummy is yummy!

We had breakfast included at the hotel which sets you up for the day and was western and Vietnamese options everyday. Afternoons were for swimming in the pool and cocktails and people watching while the waves crashed into the beach. Again we encounter the Loudees! Large groups of Chinese tourists who invade for half an hour, take a zillion photos of themselves and then depart as soon as they’ve eaten. Apart from the Loudees there were very few other tourists mainly as it’s the off season and probably Covid related.  Also interesting to note Loudees can’t swim. The hotel provides life jackets instead so they can bob in the 1.4 meter deep pool. 

There are lots of things to see on the island mainly in the snorkeling, fishing and boat trips arena none of which we felt inclined to do. It’s also the home of fish sauce so we could have gone to the factory to see how they ferment the anchovies but that didn’t appeal either. So my best friend and I decided to just ‘be’ and what a Phu Quocing great place to ‘be’.

When Nigel and I were travelling a lot in the 1990s we used Singapore as an absolute stopover on the way to Europe. It was clean, warm, safe and we could upgrade all our technology to the latest and greatest at a fantastic price.  It was also really organised and efficient so it made stopovers easy and a great break to the long hauls. We would spend our day on Orchard Road and Lucky Plaza to barter prices on the latest video camera or camera lens or pair of binoculars.

We went to Singapore a lot during those years but the last time we were there was 2005, so it had been a while between Singapore Slings. In 2005 we took 7 year old Stefan to Raffles Hotel where he lived his best life eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor.  We got a couple of Singapore Slings that cost a fortune and ticked that one off the list. A lot of things have changed since then, and the price of a Singapore Sling at Raffles has gone up (currently $37 each, we didn’t pay it) . Technology and devices are accessible online via the web and New Zealand doesn’t charge massive duty on goods anymore so it’s not a drawcard to buy electronics in places like Singapore any more.  What Singapore is to us now is a melting pot of multiple cultures amidst a sea of designer brands.

It’s still clean, warm and safe and incredibly organised and efficient. It’s a great spot to swim in the evenings and wander about during the day. The MRT underground transport system is immaculate, frequent and covers the whole island. Also you don’t need a travel card just tap on and off with your visa.  The Uber equivalent called Grab is really reliable and only takes minutes to find a ride.  It also delivers food but we didn’t try that.

What Singapore has done of late is added some amazing architectural landmarks to the skyline. The architecture of the early 1800s of three story buildings with shutters and awnings is still there but the retailers have been replaced by Prada and Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent.

Marina Bay Sands the iconic ship in the sky hotel is absolutely stunning and beneath it the Gardens on the Bay conservatories are a lovely respite from the heat and an absolute marvel of rainforest and desert inside. 

We stayed close to Clarke Quay which use to be the old red light district which is now home to bars and restaurants and river cruise boats. Comes alive in the evenings. 

The food. Yum. Chinatown. Enough said. 

Rules! Singapore is renowned for its fines for simple things like littering, spitting and feeding birds but dang that shit works! Having a no talking rule on the tube is quite strict but is adhered to by everyone (We had to whisper “is this our stop” to each other) During Covid times all indoor areas require a mask and it is strictly enforced, there are no rule breakers it just happens.  The best way to deal with almost 6 million people in an area 1/3 smaller than Auckland is with tolerance and compliance and Singapore has mastered that to a tee.