Vietnam to Bangkok, Thailand

Last time I wrote I was in Nha Trang, Vietnam. There I unfortunately could not equalize my last day of diving so I had to get a small refund on my diving course and will have to finish it once I get to an island off of Thailand.

We then travelled to Dalat, Vietnam. A beautiful town up in the mountains with cool weather reminiscent of fall days in New England. We took an Easy Rider motorbike tour through the surrounding area, which showed us the beautiful countryside, the coffee plantations, flower farms, the blacksmith who searches the woods for pieces of metal leftover from the Vietnam War-some unexploded ordinances are found as well- and creates knives out of this metal, the crazy house (a hotel with themed rooms that overall looks like you're in Alice in Wonderland), sitting buddha, happy buddha and a beautiful waterfall. A great tour overall. I came down with some strange rash-nice huh so we had to skip the shore side town of Mui Ne and head straight to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).

I really liked Saigon. Really cool, international city. Great medical care by the way. The hotel we stayed at was right across from a Bar that was open until 5 am and managed to make me think that it was 9am even in the middle of the night-it was a great hotel besides that. We met some cool people, took a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, and went to the War Remnants Museum. The latter two made me feel sad for what my country did during the Vietnam War-the aftereffects of Agent Orange were and are devastating for some families in Vietnam. I also felt strange watching a propaganda film at the tunnels that called Viet Cong war heroes "American Killer Heroes."

From Ho Chi Minh City we took the Mekong Express Bus (12 hrs) to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We passed through Phnom Penh (the capitol) but did not stay more than the 10 minutes it took to switch buses. The bus ride was comfortable. We arrived at Siem Reap late around 8 pm to find that a lot of hotels were full. Angkor Wat (one of the seven wonders of the world), ancient city of temples, appears to be a HUGE tourist attraction unsurprisingly. The city was nice, but expensive for SE Asia. We paid a whopping $15 a night for our room when we have been paying between $8 and $10 for the most part in every other place we've been.

Today we took a 4 hr. taxi ride to the Cambodian border and crossed into Thailand. The road to Thailand is infamously bumpy. It turned out to be better than I expected, though it is clear the condition of the road when I say it took us 4 hrs to travel 100 km. The border town of Poipet, Cambodia was the muddiest place I've ever seen with children grabbing at me as I tried to enter the line to get into Thailand. John had to physically push them away-a terrible feeling. I gave them my coke and water which I believe they were asking for, but unfortunately I cannot allow even children to be grabbing at my things. It's really sad because I know that this is not the children's fault-they have either been taught to do this or are desperate. Cambodia overall appeared to be the poorest country I have entered thus far. Their history alone is devastating. It was not that long ago that millions of people were murdered their by a regime that was trying to cleanse the population of the urban dwellers, intellectuals, educated, and government workers. This happened between 1975 and 1979-it's frightening what people do to each other.