HOI AN - 27th Feb. 2015 to 5th Mar. 2015

We arrived in Hoi An with the intention of being there about 3 or 4 days, but when we speak with Mariona (a girl from Catalonia and the neighbour of Markus' grandparents who at that time was doing an exchange with a Hanoi university) told us that the next weekend will be lanterns festival coinciding with the full moon. At first we didn't give much importance, but she told us that even though they make more during the year, this was one of the most important. So, we decided to stay longer and see the event. In fact, we have time and we can do it. Mariona that weekend also moved from Hanoi to Hoi An to visit the city and see this festival, so we would have the pleasure to meet her before arriving in Hanoi, because we had talked but we never met in person.

For Vietnamese people full moon night is a night to show respect to their ancestors by burning offerings and money (fake) to have good luck and prosperity. The streets are full of tourists and locals and both, put paper lanterns to float on the river, they say that brings luck, happiness and love.

Located on the central coast of Vietnam is a good example of a traditional Asian trading port. In 1999 the historical area of ​​the city was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco. Its buildings, full of influences from different cultures (mainly Chinese and Japanese) are gorgeous. One of its main attractions is the Japanese bridge, a wooden bridge with a pagoda dated from 18th century and it appears in 20,000 dongs notes. Hoi An is a photogenic place, quiet, full of shops and a daily night market to buy souvenirs. We assume you imagine it, but just in case, we confirm you: it is a very touristy place. The historic centre becomes a pedestrian zone in the evenings to be able to walk comfortably.

To enter to some historic buildings, temples and museums you must buy a ticket at the ticket office just in the beginning of the old town. We don't remember the ticket price now, but it lets you enter only to five sites. You have to choose from a list where there are museums, temples, old houses... We didn't pay it, because there are buildings and temples which aren't included in this list and they can be visited without paying, so we saved some money.

Although we have many more pictures you get an idea of the beauty of this place.

To get from Da Nang airport to Hoi An we took a taxi for 400.000 dong (about 18€). The journey takes half an hour. To get it cheaper we shared it with another backpackers couple.

In Hoi An we stayed in two different hotels, the first days in Vip Garden Homestay (105 Hùng Vu'o'ng, Hoi An. T. 05 103 916 222 / 0928 373 777) for 336.000 dong per night (a little bit more than 15€). Then we changed because we wanted to extend our stay and it was full, so we moved a bit down the street, to the Golden Leaf Homestay (124 Hung Vuong, Thanh Ha Hoi An) for 350.000 dong (a little bit less than 16€), including breakfast. Both hotels were very, very good, maybe the best accommodation we have been. Spacious, clean, with private bath, refrigerator, good internet and very nice owners.

HO CHI MINH City - 24th Feb. 2015 to 27th Feb. 2015

Our entry in Vietnam was through the largest city of the country. Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, as it was formerly known, when it was still the capital of the French Colony of Cochinchina. After the Vietnam War ended, the city was renamed Ho Chi Minh City, in honor of President Ho Chi Minh (who are embalmed in his mausoleum in Hanoi).

The city is located in the south of Vietnam, and althoungh it doesn't have anything special, it's nice to walk around the center and admire its buildings. Its traffic is stressful as it is a non-stop motorbikes everywhere and at all hours but it's still worth spending a day walking here.

Motorcycles and more motorcycles

Here you have a photo collection of our route through the city.

Among skyscrapers, Bitexco Financial Tower

Post Office

City Hall

Reunification Palace

We arrived at the War Remnants Museum, a very interesting museum and full of photographs, helicopters, airplanes... to tell the war crimes that United States committed during the Vietnam War. We don't really like to visit museums, but this is a good one and we recommend you this visit if you want to know more about the Vietnam War.
 

Here we met Pablo Sigismondi, a geographer and photographer from Argentina, who spend the days traveling around the world, documenting conflicts through photography of its people and show its situation.

War Remnants Museum (photo by & with Pablo Sigismondi)

And this is the summary of our walk through the former Saigon.

The kitchen of our favourite restaurant

.

From Ho Chi Minh we travelled by plane to Da Nang, located on the central coast of Vietnam. To go from downtown to the airport we took the public bus 152, witch departs from the big bus stop, very close to Ben Thanh Market. We paid 10.000 dong (about 0,50€)per person (including baggage surcharge).

VIETNAM - Visas & Borders

Entrance by land, via  Bavet / Moc Bai    ( Phnom Penh ‑ Ho Chi Minh )

Compared with the entry into Cambodia, Vietnam entry was much more pleasant. Both the trip itself, as well as the fact that we didn't have to deal with any scam at the border.

In the case of Vietnam, we had to get  our visa in advance (similar to Myanmar). We did it in Bangkok and it cost us 2200 Thai Bath (about 60 Euro) each. The price of the visa were showed to us, by the person who collected the visa fees. It was written with pen in a paper and showed it to us half hidden... We did not find any official announcement with the price of the visa.

The journey itself, we did it with the bus company Giant Ibis for 18 UD$ per person. It was a direct bus, without having to change bus at the border. The bus had plugs for electricity as well as Wifi, covering both Cambodia and Vietnam. In addition, the bus left downtown Phnom Penh and arrived in the center of Ho Chi Minh (no stations on the outskirts where you pay almost the same price to go to the center of the city, as you paid for the whole bus trip). We took care, to have our accommodation less than 5 minutes walking distance from the station.  So everything was fine.

To cross the Mekong River, the bus had to board a ferry, which was quite crowded. Soon this will not be necessary anymore, as they are building a bridge, with seems almost finished.

At the border we were not charged any "imaginary extra tax" (as we had to pay at the border, to entry in Cambodia) nor to leave Cambodia or to enter Vietnam. The Cambodia exit procedure, was quite fast. Then we stopped for lunch at a very nice mall and very expensive as well, as we were bringing our own food, it was fine for us, and the toilets were very clean. What was a little chaotic was the entrance to Vietnam:

The staff of the bus, collected our passports, to bring them all together to the border. There was a big crowd and chaos,  we had the feeling that every time there were more people in front of us, than behind... After a while, they were calling our name. Now we just needed to make our way to the front of all. Once this is achieved, it was a triumphant journey to Ho Chi Minh, the former capital of Vietnam, flanked at all times by Vietnam and communist flags.

PHNOM PENH - 21st Feb. 2015 to 24th Feb. 2015

Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia. As a city itself, it has nothing particularly spectacular.

Life here is a mix between calm and chaotic traffic. In the afternoon, when the sun and heat begin to go down, it seems that the city gets alive again.

In this city we discovered that our blog has many fans, and everyone wanted a picture with us ...

.

In Phnom Penh we also learned a little bit of Cambodia's history.

The unknown pain of Cambodia

Few people know the recent history of Cambodia and the genocide their population suffered. At least, we didn't know much before getting there.

In the 70's of last century, the Khmer Rouge, terrorize the country and killed arround two million people.

• Toul Sleng   S-21

It was a former school, but it was converted by the Khmer Rouge into a prison and torture center. Nowadays it's a museum and we really recommend you this visit if you are in this town.

.

• Choeung EK

Also known as The Killing Fields. Here were killed and buried in mass graves hundreds of thousands of people, many of them coming from Toul Sleng prison.

Choeung Ek is the most famous of more than 300 camps scattered throughout Cambodia. If you want to read more about the "Democratic Kampuchea" regime led by Pol Pot, here you have some links.

 - www.eccc.gov.kh/en   (Court judging the Khmer Rouge)

 - www.yale.edu/cgp   (Cambodian Genocide Program at the University of Yale) 

 - www.cambodiatribunal.org   (Cambodia Tribunal Monitor)

 - www.cekillingfield.org

This visit and Toul Sleng need to be taken with time to think and process all the information. A good audio guide explains you in The Killing Fields what happened and how they lived at this time. It's a part of recent history that surely do not leave anyone indifferent.

We think you should take a whole day to wisit this two sites, in order to understand the thinks that happened in this period of time, from the recent history of Cambodia.

We took a tuk-tuk for 14 US dollar, shared between 4 people, to go to booth places, wait for us, and return us to the hotel.

KOH RONG - 3rd Feb. 2015 to 21st Feb. 2015

We arrived in Koh Rong island recommended by Suc de Coco. Friends of us who had been there a couple of years before. We are not "beach lovers", but the pictures we had seen in their blog, were spectacular and we thought we should go there. However, we only planned to be there for three days.

We start looking for accommodation in the same town where the ferry drops you off. Fortunately the village is not big, because it's not so comfortable to walk along the sandy coast with the heavy backpacks. The beach is full of guest houses or a little bit further from what might be called "centre" there are several bungalows. When we got there, the accommodation were quite full and asked us more than we wanted to pay.

Finally, we found Dina's Guesthouse, a small colorful wooden house which is right on the beach seafront and is almost at the end of the village. It is run by a very nice family and they only have four rooms. Here we paid 10 US$ per night for a double room with shared bathroom and mosquito net.

Dina's Guesthouse. The small green house with colors.

Views from the balcony.

With this tranquility and views from our home, we decided to almost finish our visa time, in this place to have holidays from our "holidays", which is always good.

Perhaps this photo has no sense in this moment, but we put you in situation. Here was early February and it was quite cold in Europe, even some snow where normally we don't have it. At that time, our friends and family didn't stop sending us photos of the snow in their respective villages or upload them to Facebook. So we decided to make our particular sandman to make them a little envy (although it must be said that those who know me, know that they made me more envy than I to them. Don't misunderstand me. It was great on the beach, spectacular in the island and travel around is priceless... but it was too hot!).

From the village where we had our residence in Koh Rong you can do a hike for about 45 minutes, first uphill and then downhill to get to Long Beach, a white sand beach with clear and turquoise water for about 7km long. If you want to walk the path, we recommend you to use proper footwear and not flip flops because there are rocks and you have to grab ropes (don't worry you don't need to be a climber to do it).

If you are too lazy to walk, you can also take a boat that takes you to the beach and picks you up after the sunset, or if you want to walk just one way, once you get there, they offer you a return boat after sunset.

Although the water is very clean, I must say that it's a shame that such beautiful places like this, are full of rubbish. However, it seems that people are beginning to have a little more aware of the area and we saw several people these days collecting rubbish from the beach, not only in the Long Beach, but other beaches on the island too.

One of this days in the island, we decided to make an organized boat trip for 10$ each. It included snorkeling, fishing, barbecue, go to Long Beach for the sunset and swimming in the night to see the luminous plankton. In our case we couldn't almost see fishes in that area (but we laugh a lot just taking pictures of us), we fished nothing and the barbecue was a snack. Although we spent a day having fun with other travelers. Swimming in the dark to see the luminous plankton it was really worth. It was awesome, it's like seeing a very, very starry sky but inside the water. We really enjoyed that.

And this is how we decided to stay here for more than 15 days!

Before we finish this post, we also wanted to comment, that in the last years, this island has become more an more popular among travelers. And the amount of tourists increase highly. Also investors are coming to the island. Probably, in a very short time, it will be quite different as we experienced it.