Hello! Sue sdei! Where do you go? I don’t know!

Hashing in Phnom Penh

Rob has been talking about the Himalayan Hash House Harriers since the day I met him. Hash House Harriers is an international group of non-competitive social running clubs. Hashing involves following a path laid out by a Hare through all sorts of obstacles. Traditionally it is paired with the drinking of beer, which I less eagerly anticipated! 

 During Rob’s year in Nepal he was a regular Hasher. We had hoped to do a hash in Kathmandu whilst we were there but the stars did not align and we were not there on a Sunday (hash day). We vowed to look out for future opportunities and Phnom Penh turned out to be the city to host us!

We invited Tim (who we had been staying with in Ho Chi Minh and whose travel dates coincided with our stay in Phnom Penh) to join us. It was his first Hash too which meant we initially followed-the-leader rather than the white spray-paint that indicated the path. It also meant we were required to stand in the middle of the circle during the drinking songs and the end of the hash.

The hash got off to a very slow start. Meeting at the deserted train-station of Phnom Penh we were to wait a good hour before hopping on a cattle truck that took us to the ferry. Our hash was to be out in the country-side and after reboarding the cattle truck on the other side of the river, a few wrong turns, several tree branches in people’s faces, numerous bumps in the road and many looks of disbelief from locals, we arrived at our starting point: a primary school.

Tim and I on the way to our first hash

Our group was diverse, consisting of expats (or immigrants), locals and tourists aged from 25-60 with a wide range of backgrounds. Some were walkers (one of them showed up in dress shoes but everyone was relieved he had sneakers in his bag) and others ran. Our route involved rice paddies, temples, someone’s backyard, a boat crossing, roads and alleyways. Farmers stared at us; probably wondering why we weren’t in our hammocks at this time of day. I used my miniscule amount of Khmer to greet a farmer and it turned into a little rhyme:

Sue sdei!

Hello!

Where do you go?

I don’t know!

It must be very odd to find foreigners running in your fields looking like they are on a mission but realising they actually do not have the faintest idea where they are headed! 

The first crossing of the hash

Serenity

What are you people doing?

We passed through villages with many friendly waves and giggles from children. Towards the end it felt like we were finishing a marathon with the reception we got. Children waved tree branches and cheered and I felt like I should be more exhausted than I was! Don’t get me wrong, though it wasn’t a marathon; it was certainly a challenge. It was a very hot day and it has been awhile since I ran at all, let alone on uneven trails in scorching sun!

Marathon crowd :P

Smiley kids

Take my photo!

Taking a look at the previous photo

Once we reached our final destination the drinks were handed around and we formed a ceremonious circle. I opted for an electrolyte drink, until I was pulled in the circle and given a cup of beer. It felt rude not to take part. If someone from around the circle sat down on the ground they would be forced to sit on a huge ice cube in the centre. Rob had mouthed off early so also found himself in the middle of the circle with a pipe around his arm. His drink was a bit harder to swallow.

Rob's challenge, Tim and my beer that tasted like...beer

Circle time went on a bit too long for me with far more drinking songs than you can poke a stick at. We had told poor Steph (Tim’s wife) that we would be back before dinner but it was going to be much later by the time we took the journey back to Phnom Penh. Nevertheless, I enjoyed being surround by the local kids playing as the sun went down. 

Kids, probably wondering what one earth we were doing

We hope to do more hashing in other places this year and would recommend it to other travellers. It is a great experience, incorporates some exercise and the costs are minimal (US$5 in Phnom Penh). Visit the PP site here!

Ready to hash another day!

Chinese Visas for Australians (Phnom Penh)

I officially hate visa applications.  If you have read my blogs from the past, you might already be familiar with my frustrations at this process (see "Ma American Hoina"), but I'm now making it official.

Getting visas sucks, big time.

When living in Nepal, I remember for the first time meeting people who were doing a "visa run".  Baffled, I asked for more detail. "Well, you know, there's no reason for me to be in Kathmandu, except that I need a visa for X & Y..." (Then again, perhaps it is not a good idea to get travel advice from people that think there is no reason for them to be in Kathmandu).

The process is the bane of a backpacker, because while you probably care little for weekends, it seems that many embassies and consulate's do.  Even more so, they have incredibly strict opening hours, dodgy looking websites, out-of-date addresses, long processing times and unpublished rules that all factor in to whether you will find yourself making multiple trips.  Also, while it is generally pretty easy to get passport photos, filling in forms is a dull and sometimes complex task, made all the more complicated when you need to print the form first, and try to keep it in a somewhat neat condition.  Let alone actually having an itinerary to present alongside your application.

Before Kat & I left Australia in January, the Vietnamese visa was the only shiny new one in our passports.  We tried applying for Russian, Mongolian and Vietnamese visas before we left.  Russia would not provide one more than 3 months in advance of our arrival, even with a very polite letter that this Lonely Planet Forum post suggested would work. Mongolia would not provide a transit visa without us first procuring a Russian visa.  Luckily (haha or so we thought), Vietnam obliged.

Our first crack at Chinese visas in Ho Chi Minh City was thwarted by the lengthy process it took to get a new Vietnamese visa (more on that later).  We only had one specific day where we would have to drop our application and passports at the Chinese consulate in HCMC, allowing for 4-5 business days of processing before we needed passports again.  Unfortunately, after waiting in a security line for 30 minutes (where I was waved through upon reaching the end) and a further 30 minute wait in a very confusing waiting room, China would not accept Kat's application unless she dropped it off in person (despite there being a section of the form that suggested otherwise).  With Kat working at the orphanage every day, this proved an impossibility and we made hasty plans to re-apply in Phnom Penh, once we had made it to Cambodia.

In the end, this proved to be far more convenient, and I would suggest to other travelers faced with similar problems, that they should apply in Cambodia. When we applied in March, there were no lines, the process was more or less straight forward and it was easy.  Let me stress that.  Easy, if still frustrating .  After all the schmozzle of Russia, Mongolia, Vietnamese extensions and new ones and reprinting forms for a Phnom Penh application instead of an HCMC one and the genuine fear of being in a place without your passport, this was easy.  You really do not need your hotel to do the process for you (SLA Hostel - where we stayed) offered the service for $US88/pp, we did it in person for $US45/pp +2x$US8 round trip tuk-tuk, one of which we combined with a visit to the S-21 Khmer Rouge prison/museum (former school).

• Make sure you have:
  • a fully completed application form
  • glued on your passport photo ahead of time
  • have an itinerary attached (including names, addresses and phone numbers of accommodation providers)
  • have evidence of any planes or trains attached (they would not accept our application for a double-entry visa unless we had plane tickets in, out and into China again). I did manage to explain that it was too early for us to book our onward train tickets.
• Tips:
  • AirBNB is unlikely to be viewed positively on the application - I suggest picking a hostel, at the very least for your first night (although we did receive our visa, our AirBNB host that was booked ahead of the visa application, spontanesously canceled a few days before our arrival in Guangzhou citing that "local police don't accept me having foreigners" - we suppose perhaps our application with his phone number on it had something to do with the cancellation.
  • Pay when you pick up (cash in Phnom Penh), not when you drop off.
  • We wrote a cover letter which they ignored and gave back to us before processing.
  • Plan your Phnom Penh visit around drop off and pickup at the Chinese Embassy.
  • I've read that looking smart (shave, collared shirt etc) helps.
  • Know a few words in Mandarin - politeness helps!
  • The visa processing section is at an unsigned side door down a road to the right of the main entrance (our tuk-tuk drivers both took us to the main entrance), the security guard outside is the only indication you are in the right place.
  • Address: No.156, Blvd Mao Tsetung, Phnom Penh, Cambodia (P. O. Box 26)
    Duty-Phone: +855-12-810928
    Website: http://kh.china-embassy.org
    Open Hours of Consular Office: 08:30-11:30 Monday-Friday

Amok in a Sock…and…I made a vegetable swan

I’ve always found cooking classes a great way to engage with a place and its people. It is also nice to do if you are finding the “seeing” in “sight-seeing” is taking its toll and you want to be a bit creative and do something practical. 

I was very excited to be back in Cambodia to eat as much amok as I could fit so when I found a cooking class with the promise of making it myself, I was all the more overjoyed. On my last trip to Siem Reap my friends (Scott and Bianca) and I had even made a tribute song to Amok.  (Though our simple song probably didn’t quite convey our love for the dish: “Amok, amok, amok in a sock”!) Prior to Rob's and my arrival in Phnom Penh we had spent a morning cooking up some Vietnamese goodies in Ho Chi Minh. 

VEGETABLE SWAN'S IN VIETNAM*

Our Vietnamese class began with a trip to Bin Tanh market to buy ingredients. We stuck out like sore thumbs being pedalled by cyclo to the market. Trying to make the most of the situation, we thought we could practice our Vietnamese sayings and numbers with our friendly drivers. They went off on a tangent however and got into a repetitive chant of “Chuk Mung Num Moi” (Happy New Year). Tet was finished some time ago but the signs (and apparently the greetings) hang around long into the new year.

Multi tasking ice-cutter dude

To market to market

After the market we walked to a restaurant where Vu, our teacher chef, taught us about our ingredients and how to chop them Vietnamese style. He was a great teacher and I learnt a lot from him. We (Rob and I, a couple from Singapore and another Aussie) made fried chicken with lemongrass, green melon shrimp soup, prawn spring rolls, pancakes, pork and prawn salad and even a vegetable swan and flower. We were given long cooking chopsticks as souvenirs, perhaps also something for the China fairy to take home for us. The food was delicious!

Chef Vu, a knife expert

Smell that lemongrass!

Rose, heart pancake

Cooking group and delicious lunch

AMOK IN A SOCK IN PHNOM PENH

Our Khmer cooking class in Phnom Penh began with a friendly welcome from our teacher chef, Nara. He gave Rob and I Cambodian names: Chantha and Raksmey. My name means sunshine and Rob's means something like 'talking of the moon'.

Tim and the spring rolls

We were excited to be doing the class with our friends Tim and Steph even though we were a bit worried about Steph’s previous violent behaviour around food! As well a delicious country-style amok, we made a pumpkin custard dish, deep fried eggplant rolls and a pork & peanut salad. The extreme heat of the Phnom Penh kitchen was worth the excellent results. After our satisfying dinner we rolled around Phnom Penh trying not to look like we needed a tuk-tuk for our stomachs.

Choppity chop!

Amok: the main attraction!

Excited to learn the art of amok

Pumpkin custard: a must try!

Ready to dig in!

Both cooking classes were excellent. Our HCM class was a bit more organised and I probably learnt more in terms of technique but both were equally enjoyable. Hopefully we can replicate our results back home!

COOKING CLASS WEBSITES:

Ho Chi Minh: CycloResto

Phnom Penh: Backstreet Academy


* Full disclosure: None of us students actually make the swan. We watched the Chef Vu make it. We made the flowers!

My flower alongside Chef Vu's swan

A coffee and coconut on the Mekong

Relaxing boat ride and we got hats!

We decided to visit Mekong Delta on our way from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh. A short minibus to Vinh Long, a ferry and motorbike to our homestay left us with an afternoon to explore An Binh island. Explore is probably not quite the right word here as we were too hot to get very far. In actuality we took a short stroll to the waters edge, accidentally trespassed on to an angry man’s land, had a Vietnamese coffee at a tiny café and committed ourselves to our hammocks. Our friends at the island café were amused by us and took great pride in explaining how we were to drink our tea and coffee.(Reminding me a little bit of our "THIS is your breakfast" lad from Chitwan.)

Getting the ferry across to An Binh island from Vinh Long

Our homestay (Ngoc Phuong) was peaceful and had possibly the best internet of our trip so far. (Not bad for a silt island in the middle of nowhere.) The kids that lived at the homestay were fun. The little girl decided I looked good with a sieve on my head and that someone else’s glasses were hers to play with. This was after the four year old had run into my room with a giant pair of scissors and threatened to cut my headphone cord! 

Reading "Watership Down" together on hammocks

  

Homes built on silt buildup at the mouth of the Mekong

Dinner was both impressive and tasty…as long as we all sat in the right places. I have found in Vietnam that great pride is taken in how the table is set and everything must be 'just so'. Trying to help create space on a table is often fruitless as you will inevitably just move something to the incorrect spot!

Nothing wrong with taking pride in appearance

On our second day at An Binh we took a boat trip to a floating market. It was rather small and not super busy. Perhaps it was a quiet day of the week. We jumped aboard a fruit boat where the enthusiastic vendor proceeded to cut up every fruit in sight for us to try. She didn’t really have to try hard to sell us her goods. Rob left the boat sipping on a coffee, we each had a coconut to drink from and then eat. For later we had some mango and dragon fruit.

FBI Agent in the fruit boat

Petrol station on the Mekong

Exploring

It was incredible seeing how they transported masses of rice and other items on large boats. They didn’t seem to mind if they lost some along the way. All the boats have the same design on them. Apparently it is of dragon eyes and there to scare of sea monsters. We spent a long time on the boat which was so peaceful that I kept nodding off. Eventually we made it to a few other stops which I believe are routine on such Mekong tours: candy, popcorn and rice wine factory and honey bee farm. At the factory I found a coconut candy that I had tasted before and fell in love with once more. It is a dangerous addiction as they are sold in large packets and I cannot stop!

Transportation, hammocks and clothesline all in one

 

Dragon eyes

Making coconut candy

After some more relaxing at An Binh we again found ourselves on the ferry to Vinh Long. Here, two ladies got great pleasure at the size of my bag. Then I pointed at Rob’s and how they chuckled! Before we knew it the lady was pretending to be backpack and Rob had her up in the air!

Rob's new backpack!

A bumpy bus ride from Vin Long took us to Chau Dac, a town on the border of Vietnam and Cambodia. A walk along the river led us to spontaneously organise a late afternoon boat ride around the fishing villages of the area.  It was interesting to see how they kept the fish and prepared them for sale, though definitely coming toward the end of the day.

We visited a Cham village that largely consisted of people whose ancestors had immigrated from Malaysia/Borneo some 800 years ago.  They have maintained their culture and religion despite being spread across Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand making up the bulk of Islamic people in these areas.  There wasn’t really much to see on our visit except the refurbishment of the local mosque. The highlight was children playing but I suppose it often is!

High jumper highlight

From Chau Dac we took a speedboat to Phnom Penh to begin our adventures in Cambodia.

A FEW TIPS FOR A DIY MEKONG TRIP:
* Many people take packaged trips from Ho Chi Minh. Though this is convenient, we found it simple enough to organise ourselves. If you value the flexibility then we'd recommend it.

* Going from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Penh via the Mekong was a great way to break up the travel. Mixing boats and buses also helped.

* To organise a homestay you will need to call places directly as they often do not have websites or use email. If you can, have a Vietnamese speaker to help make arrangements.


 

Entrepreneurship is alive and well in Saigon

Saigon is a city that has seen its fair share of change.  At one time part of Cambodia, taken over by Vietnam, France and central to the battle of North vs South and America, its residents have to be used to change.

That's something that I found inspiring while left to wander the streets, coffee shops, parks and embassies while Kat was working at the orphanage.  The entrepreneurial spirit is certainly alive in this town.

Footpath salad

The three main stories I want to share where from a food tour, a simple bookshop and a group of enthusiastic first-year English students at the Industrial University of Ho Chi Minh City.

Local Motion
Tim and Steph promised that we could go with them on a local food tour, Vietnam style - on the back of a motorbike.  With Mum in town, being wined and dined by every colleague every night, she was keen to experience some street food Vietnam-style "as long as it is safe!"

Mum, staying safe with Bom

Local Motion are an amazing group of people, who came to pick us up from Mum's hotel, all 5 of them, dressed in black shirts with bright traffic light colours.  Ridiculously, less than 6 months ago, this same group took my brother Tim and his girlfriend Sal on a tour.  With Mum jumping on the back of Bom's bike, we joked that all we needed was Dad and they would have met our whole family.

Feeling comfortable the entire time (except for a brief mis-step where Kat's driver took a wrong turn) we enjoyed 4 meals at amazingly different locations.  Salad on the footpath by the park, ostrich, crocodile and squid barbecued on a roofing tile, Vietnamese pancakes at a street stall and coffee or ice-cream in an exquisitely up-market venue we were truly satisfied.  We traveled more of Ho Chi Minh City in 4 hours than we had throughout the entire day, and we were fit to bursting. 

Kat tries to avoid spitting oil and flames while Steph is hankering for some ostrich

Mai and her crew spoke fantastic English, to the point that we were arguing over the meaning of "splitting hairs", we loved being in their company and I can't think of a more welcoming or clever way to be introduced to Vietnam. 



It was so good to have a unique night out, not only with Tim & Steph in their adopted home, but with Mum visiting Saigon at the same time as us was like a free ticket to a show you didn't know you wanted to go to!

 






BOA Bookshop - The Book of Awesome
During a more-delightful-than-expected visit to a doctor, I was flipping through a magazine and found an article about a unique English bookstore in downtown Saigon.  Annoyed that I didn't get to finish it, I had to wait after my appointment for the lady who had since picked up the magazine to leave, so that I could finish reading it.  In all, I spent more than an hour hanging around the clinic.  One of the secretaries came up to me and said, "you know we are finished?  You can go now".  I actually wonder how long she had waited before coming up to say that.

To get anywhere by taxi or xe om in Vietnam, you need the address written down.  Don't even begin to believe that you might have a handle on how to pronounce Vietnamese words, let alone be able to explain them to your driver.  With the address copied from the article in order to show to random strangers should I become lost, I marched off immediately in the wrong direction, eager to find it before heading home.

Apparently they had started up simply as a box of books.  They left it out on the street, for anyone to drop off or pick up a book.  Like a communal library.  Until someone stole them all, but that's another story.

The Book of Awesome Bookstore is behind a restaurant, up two flights of stairs and down a blank hallway with encouraging signs telling you "...almost there..." on the way.  From the street, there is a half fallen down cardboard sign with "BOA bookshop" hanging in the window that you can see only if you are looking for it, and I certainly recommend you do.  The store was neat and tidy, with someone napping on the makeshift bunk above the door and another woman working behind the cash register.  As I was dripping with sweat from the walk and the stairs, she immediately turned on the fan and took my bag, while inquiring about what I was looking for.  Bizarrely, of the first two books she recommended, I had read one and Kat the other in the last 2 months ("Speaker for the Dead" and "The Giver" if you are interested). The story behind how they've started up this shop and the enthusiasm with which they run it were inspiring.  If you live in or are visiting Saigon and need a new book, check out BOA, they have new and used and will even do trades.

The English Club

While Kat was exploring the unknown: doing strange versions of the chicken dance, creating innovative new games to teach English and singing with the children at the orphanage, I was trying to find a productive way to spend my time besides drinking coffee and arranging visas.

Kat asked her colleague, Gene, a physio at the orphanage, about volunteering opportunities. He suggested that I could easily hang out at the university across the road and speak English with the students, who he said were always enthusiastic about learning, particular with a "real" English-speaker. He was actually able to rattle off some statistics about how much more successful university graduates can be if they have a good command of English.

As it happened, after sharing a lunch with Kat nearby the orphanage one day, a group approached us asking if they could talk to us for a little while.  Unknown to us, we had stumbled upon the Technical University's English club!  This was a committed group of students (many of whom majoring in English) who get together to study and speak English. I met up with them as many days as possible, we talked about politics, religion, how to meet women, local and Australian customs and travel.  Hanna, one of the women in attendance actually had the best advice in the relationships department, but I'm not sure how many of the guys took the advice to heart.
  

The group really seemed to get something from hanging out, just as I did. I really enjoyed spending time with a group of committed individuals while getting to learn more about them, where they were from and about their country.

While I guess this doesn't really fit into the category of entrepreneurship, I found their commitment to learn striking, and that they recognised how important a good command of English could be in their future careers despite the obstacles that organisations and other students might put in their way. I just wish I had met them earlier.