Pink in Phnom Penh

Rented a bike today and cycled around PP forgetting to put suncream on so face and shoulders have gone a nice rosy red... That aside, renting a bike was just perfect for seeing the city - it's quite compact and there isn't as much traffic as in Saigon meaning you even get to survive the experience - but barely. Was all proud of myself for doing as the Romans do but, as was trying to cross wide busy boulevards using the zig-zagging and ducking method, it occurred to me that Romans threw people to the lions...


Sunset over lake in Phnom Penh
Not cut out for the Viet Cong
Really really enjoyed Saigon... Went to the Mekong Delta down in the SOuth on a day tour (a v canned one involving photos with pythons around one's neck), visited the Cu Chi tunnels where I had a slightly embarrassing episode... We were looking at the entrance into one of the tunnels which was framed by a metal border. It was TINY and a couple of the skinny wans got in, everyone else hovering around... After doing a couple of mental measurements and mathematics I decided I'd just fit in so popped off my flipflops and slid in... Pas de probleme... However, when getting out, I realised I'd been optimistic in my measurements - making the hole bigger and my

hips smaller... But you can't argue with physics so I couldn't get out!!! Erm, I said to a couple of lads standing above me, it would appear I am stuck... Could you give me a helping hand? So three guys pulled me out. Funnily enough, it wasn't embarrassing at all - i think the relief of finally getting out without destroying a historical relic superseded any other emotions i could feel. It's clear that the Viet Cong didn't have any Western hips in it...

A very Irish corner in Saigon
Visited the Christina Noble Children's Foundation where Trich and her housemates work... Set in a beautiful building (built for the charity by an Irish builder), it has a school for socially disadvantaged kids to help them catch up with schooling before going onto mainstream schools. Then there's the centre providing long term care for kids who are malnurished, disabled or have other medical problems - it has nurses, physiotherapists and other medical staff. Trich showed me around and the kids were all just gorgeous - wide-eyed, friendly, warm - there was just a gorgeous vibe about the place despite the background of the kids... Kudos to the Centre and all its staff! The administration centre was bizarre in that it had these photos of very Irish things - Bertie Ahern, the O'Brien's Sandwich shop logo, a photo of a vietnamese girl's bedroom with a poster of Westlife in the background... Also a lot of the volunteers and staff are Irish so there's a lot of 'oh my god you know so and so?' and 'really you lived there? i used to live just around the corner...?'...
Went to an Irish pub called Sheridans - was looking around thinking that the vietnamese had done a great job with it as it was really authentic when I noticed a dark solitary figure on the other side of the bar - a big bearded man reminiscent of Connemara fishermen in dark West of Ireland pubs... I then noticed a photo of a similar-looking man with Bertie Ahern on the wall behind him so asked if it was him... He nodded slowly... 'Are you the owner?'.. Another nod... Ah that would explain the authencity of the pub...
Something else that's quite bizarre in Vietnam: all over the country, when you say you're from ireland (or Aie-lann) people say 'oh you know Roy Keane/Robbie Keane?'....!! In fact, when Fiona Keane (a friend of Trich's who arrived when I was there) was going through passport check at the airport, she was asked if she was Roy Keane's sister! Poor girl was perplexed until Trich explained that Vietnamese men think of Roy when they hear Ireland.

Arriving in Cambodia
I think a result of living in the EU is astonishment at how hard it can be to go from one country to another. I should be used to it by now but I still get a surprise when I find a country requires a visa (and how much said visa might cost!) and that getting into a country isn't as straightforward as it might be getting from france to Germany on an EU passport. Getting to Cambodia from Vietnam is probably the most complicated border crossing I've experienced... Got a coach to the Vietnamese border where we had to show our passports and leave the country going into a sorta no-man's land resembling a construction site (in fact,a big temple was being built in it..) Arriving at the Cambodian border, we were given forms to fill out and told to wait while passports being checked. ONe by one, the others frm my bus received their passports but nothing for me... So I went up to ask... They didn't have it! I was like, bu... but... I gave it to you, in high pitched voice. Turned out that it'd got mixed up with a whole load of passports that were, as we were speaking, on a coach about to go into Cambodia... Quickly, one of the officials went and retrieved it. But can you imagine losing your passport there? In a no-man's land...???!!! Not in vietnam but not in Cambodia either!

Double decker buses
We'd gone to vietnam on a big air-con coach. But in Cambodia, our bus was a lot smaller. We also had new passengers... So getting onto the bus was an exercise in physics - how to fit into a container of certain volume something of larger volume... I am proud to say that I was part of the first ever experiment to prove that this is indeed possible. This was mainly due to a very creative bus driver. When faced with the possibiltity that he was not going to fit the last two lads (Irish country ones from Leitrim and Cavan) in, he went down to the back of the bus, got someone to open the window and took a box that'd been on the back seat out. As the passage down to this seat was choc-a-bloc, he got one of the lads to... climb through the window...! Up to this point, all Westerners on the bus had been sitting in a stunned silence but watching this poor guy try and squeeze through a tiny window (think Cu CHi tunnel-size) we all just cracked up.. The second guy was invited to share the driver's seat with the driver and a few boxes and suitcases up in the front.
But when I saw the average Cambodian bus, I realised we were on a luxury bus... Driving through the countryside, we saw that bus roofs are considered extra seating - several buses going around with roofs packed full of people... I've also been told that sometimes when the roof is full, some people will sit on the bumper!

Right i think this blog is long enough without me going into Phnom Penh... so will save that for another day!

xxxx