Apparently Hoi An is one of the only city that have not been destroyed by the French or by the Americans during the wars. So the center is quiet nice, many buildings look a bit the same and that give to the town a very nice look.
Next to Hoi An there is a place call marble mountain, that some very small mountains ( or really big rocks) only made by marble. It’s possible to go up the mountains to see the view from the top, or to visit some caves inside the mountain.
There is also some nice beach and some ruins of an old temple, but I didn't had time to see that as my visa is only 1 month and I have still many things I want to see in Vietnam.
After dalat I went to nha trang on the cost, I didn’t really want to go there but didn’t have much choice with the bus.
Basically it’s just a big beach town full of travelers it feels a bit like Miami beach, or surfer paradise, or la grande motte for example, a big city next to a beautiful beach, it really don’t feel like Vietnam at all.
As I check in a hostel before checking the bus to continue my trip I had to stay one more day as there is only night bus to get to my next step. so I went in the islands around to do some snorkeling during the day before my bus, it was cool
So after Saigon, I went a bit more inland and higher altitude so the temperature was lower and much more enjoyable!!!
Data is small city, but really nice, they have a little. you have many small touristic attraction like some waterfalls, a lake, many factory or farm to visit, ( coffee, flower or cricket farm for example) a bit like everywhere, and all this is possible almost only as part of a tour, so I decided to skip that. Instead I went for a day cannoning in a very nice river. Going down big waterfalls, cliff jumping, water slide…. A very good day !!!
Saigon is a really big city with about 7 million people and at least 4 Million motorbikes
The amount of motorbike is really very very impressive, and it make the crossing of the road very interesting, as if you wait for the road to be clear, you will never get through.
Basically you have to go even if there is still heaps of motorbike or car. Just walk slowly, looking at the coming motorbikes, and don’t stop; that way is very easy.
I walked around the city during a whole day to see the main attraction. I was a bit disappointed by the war museum that wasn't like I was expected. The independence palace was cool. there is a big market, a cathedral, a big river.. it is quite nice to walk around.
The next day I went to the the cu chi tunnels, It is a very big network of underground tunnels, very small, that was used during the war by the Vietnamese There is two different area that you can visit, one were all tourist tour goes that was described to me as “Disneyland”, and one much less touristic and more authentic. So instead of getting a tour from the city to Disneyland, I decided to make my own way to the tunnel using the public buses and find the less touristic tunnel. Arriving there, there was no tourist (during the whole day I saw only one couple of non-Vietnamese), just few big groups of Vietnamese student. I didn't understand exactly everything, but I think they were here because that day, it was like a holiday for young people ( 18 to 30 yo).
At the beginning of my visit one group invited me to join them during their picnic and having “few” beers. Only one of them speak a bit of English and they were very very nice, they even offer me a present, and share with me all their food and beers!!! so I end up spending the whole day with them and visit the tunnel and the area with them.
After this awesome day, it was time to move on to my next destination!!!
So, when I arrived in Saigon, after a loooong journey from Cambodia over 24h, at about 8am I finally reach my hostel.
But As I was walking up the stairs to reach the reception a small group of tourist talk to me (it was the first time I saw someone that speak English since 24h). they were about to go for a 2days tour on the Mekong delta, and explained that one girl that was supposed to be on that trip couldn’t come and they didn’t find anyone to resell it, so They ask me to join them with this ticket. I was very tired and all dirty, I had absolutely no clean cloth and not any idea about what to do in Saigon and around, I was thinking only about a shower and a bed, But they were really nice, and it was a very good opportunity to visit the Mekong delta for almost free. So I decided to go with them, I just had the time to leave my bag at the reception and run with them to catch the bus as it was about to leave already.
The tour was ok, but that remind me that I don’t like tours, we visit few place over the Mekong delta, a fabric of coconut candy, and a fabric of rice noodles. Some fruit plantations, a big floating market which was really cool; and a lot of bus and boat to between all different places.
It was good to see most of the Mekong tourist attraction quickly and without having to plan or worry about anything.
After these two days, I finally managed to get passed the reception of the hostel, take a shower, do laundry and start thinking about what to do in Vietnam.
to left Banlung, I went in a minivan to pleiku (a city in Vietnam close to the border, it was really fun trip as I was the only European in the van, and no one speak any English, also we stop at sooo many place to pick up and drop off peoples or food, or beverage, or many kind of things.
The border was very small in a middle of a dirt road, very quiet, and more enjoyable than the crossing in Poipet where I get from Thailand to Cambodia.
Pleiku Is really not touristic place, so when I arrived there, absolutely no one speak any word of English, so it was a big challenge to find my way to the bus station on the other side of the city, find an ATM to get some local money, and buy the ticket, for a night bus to Saigon.
When I get in the bus to Saigon I get really surprise to see how it was inside, can’t really describe it so here is some pictures.
And after 11h in the bus, at around 5:30AM we arrived in the bus station in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), from there as It was really early I took my time and decided to get to where I wanted to go using the public bus instead of the motorbike taxi. It was a bit of a challenge to find which bus to take, were to take it, and get there. And then I just had to walk about 15min to get to an hostel that looks cool, and when I finally arrived to that hostel …… it was FAR from being the end of this journey, but that’s another story …. Coming Soon !!
When I arrived in Cambodia the first things I saw was to border crossing from Thailand, and With all the scam and the chaos, it was really weird and not really fun, but as soon as I get to Siem Reap I was really surprised to see how nice everyone are !!! Everyone is smiling making jokes, very friendly, I really loved it, during my first days, some people proposed me to play soccer with them, when I buy some food in the street, the lady teach me few basic word in Cambodian…
There were some not nice people too, like at the guest house I was staying in Phnom Phen, but overall, I really love Cambodian people. The only bad part is that there is still few assholes that only want your money, so you still have to be a bit careful and sometimes that make you being very rude with very nice people that only want you to like their country and be happy.
One of the big problem in the country is the corruption, and the inequality between few very rich people (usually government people) and the rest of the country. (je pense que Jean Charest se ferait traiter d’amateur au cambodge) almost every interesting part of the country are sold to big company like almost all the islands that are sold to big tourist company. Next to Banlung I went swimming in a small and beautifull lake. And I talk with one guy from a minority group that live close to the lake, and they have to fight all the time to keep it like that, away from big touristic complex and to keep their land !!
It is much less touristic country than Thailand, so usually the places are well preserved. Except a small town on the coast that is known as backpackers place, and good place to relax and party. There are really a lot of tourists there…. There was sooo much garbage on the beach that you don’t really want to go swim in it.
As conclusion, I really loved people and the country, But I think if the tourism develop too quickly it will become very bad. And with all the corruption, there is nothing that rally stop the big company to come here if they want to …
To finish with Cambodia I decided to go in a much less touristic place, and more remote area. I went to Ratanakiri province, on the north east close to the border with laos and Vietnam. After 11h bus from Phnom Penh, I arrived in banlung, around there this is many nice water falls, and lakes in old crater, also as it is not touristic and little town it’s good to really see the country from more local point of view.
Also around there, there is a very big jungle and it is possible to do some big trek, going very very deep in the jungle, and meet some native family that live only in the jungle. However you need to be at least few people to do it otherwise it is really too expensive. And as it is really not touristic, I din’t find other groups to go trekking, I’m really sad that I couldn’t do it because it look really amazing, it would probably have been the best part of my trip from what I heard about it :(. Anyway I hope to find some similar place in Vietnam or laos to do that !!
During the time I stayed in Banlung looking for other tourist I also went to see few waterfalls and a lake. I rented a motorbike to drive around all these places, and that was really good experience most of the road are just dirt/sand road, I drive across very small villages. It was really cool day.
But after a bit more that 2 days not finding anyone for trekking I decided to continue my trip and go to Vietnam!!
After visiting Phnom Penh I get down a bit, to the coast. I went in small town with not much to do except party and relax, but the place where I was staying was really awesome and very cheap so I stayed 3 days there. after I decided to go on some island close by. After talking with people, I heard about a rumor that there was an island very very quiet with a perfect beach and almost no one there…. No no I’m not talking about the movie “the beach”. But actually, it is very similar!!
So I took a boat to get there, and when I arrived I saw this very long beach with almost nothing there, just few bungalow. I stayed in a dormitory which was really awesome, facing the sea, so I fall asleep and wake up looking directly at the sea. There is about nothing to do there, but the place is sooo beautiful and relaxing that it’s really good to stay, go swimming and being lazy. I stayed 3 days which was really nice.
You can walk on the other side of the island to find another very nice beach, also totally empty and from there you can see a really nice sunset.
The first night was really quiet, the water was totally flat, but there were a big storm on the horizon which make a perfect and relax atmosphere, seeing the light of heaps lightnings on the horizon. It was perfect.
Also I went to swim with the glowing plankton, basically it’s the plankton that when it is disturbed it glow, the water was really full of that, so swimming was really awesome but I couldn't take pic of it with my camera. If you have seen the movie “the beach” it is about the same.
A bit later in the evening the storm reaches the island. It get from extremely quiet to heaps of wind in about 10 sec. And 5 min later it start raining like hell, and as you can see the dormitory is quiet open, so it was also very windy and chaotic with all the mosquito nets that moved a lot, and even a little bit of rain reaching me, but nothing really annoying, I find it really cool and refreshing, I loved it.
And I don’t know why, but in the morning I wake up at about 6 o’clock and when I opened my eyes, I just seen an awesome sunrise, directly from my bed !! Again, awesome!!
The other days I did about the same, exploring, swimming, relaxing.
It is one of the best place I have seen in Asia, and it is still well preserved, I prefer not saying too much detail about where it is to give more chance to the place to stay like that!! even if I heard that even a year ago nothing was there, so I guess in one year it will have twice as much as bungalow and in few years it will be full of guest house, diving companies, restaurants, shops and roads.
I heard that it is one of the only islands that haven’t been sold to big tourist company. I heard also that another island in the area was about the same few years ago, and now most of the tree have been cut down, and they build a huge resort and even an airport !!! Let’s hope this won’t happen to this place!!
I have done few comparisons with the movie the beach in this post; and even if it wasn't filmed here, that is really similar. It’s a perfect paradise, not much people know about it, and only few people are there. A perfect beach with perfect white sand, and crystal clean water…
I have seen the bay were the actually movie has been filmed (Maya bay next to Koh PhiPhi in Thailand), and here is much bigger but not as impressive as it’s not surrounded by cliffs like Maya bay. The beach is about the same, except that there is about 1000 time less people, and almost no garbage on the beach.
I wish I can go back there, but I guess that by the time I'll come back in the area, it won’t be the same :(
I heard many good things about Phnom Penh, and also that many people that visit Phnom Penh fail to find the good vibe of the city, I’m probably one of these people, I didn’t find many things to do in town and the people here were mush less friendly than what I was used to in Siem Reap, especially in the guest house where I was staying, so overall I didn’t really like this town, so I didn’t stay long. Just spend one day visiting the few good things in town, like the royal palace, and few monument and temples, but with the amount of temple I have sine since I arrived in Thailand, that wasn’t really necessary!!!
Siem Reap is a nice little town north east of Cambodia; I stayed here 2 full days. The first day I just relax a bit, walk around town to discover a bit of Cambodian culture. Even if it is very touristic and probably not reel Cambodia, it is still interesting and my first impression is that Cambodian people are extremely nice!! Even if they push a lot to try to sell you stuff which is a bit annoying, they are still very nice. I have seen a small temple about the same as the ones I have seems in Thailand, and an old market that reminded me the markets in Peru.
The next day I went to visit the main attraction in the country and in south east Asia, Angkor temples, it is an big area with many many old temples in ruins, the area is really huge much bigger than Siem Reap town. As it is very big and there is a lot to see, it was a very long day to see most of it in only one day. With a friend I met in the border and that stayed at the same guest house as me, we hire a tuk tuk for the day to drive us between all the temples.
The sunrise over the temple is very famous so we started at 5AM from our guest house to get to the main temple for the sunset. It was a bit foggy so the sunset wasn't really interesting. But anyway, we start the visit with Angkor Wat, the most famous temple; it is still in good shape compared to other temples and it’s very impressive.
Then we went in Angkor Thom it is a huuuge area with a temple in the middles and many other ruins next to it.
After, we continue visiting many other temples more or less interesting.
One of the last temples we visited is really damaged by the time and there is many trees that grown in the temple and ON the temple. It is really impressive to see that.
And we finish the day by a sunset not really interesting for the same reason as the sunrise wasn’t very good.
That was very long day but very interesting, these temple are really huge and beautiful, even if it is expensive (the entrance and everything you might buy in the area) you definitely need to visit it if you come in the area!!
My visa was about to expire so I had to move out of the country quickly. So from Koh Tao I went directly in Bangkok. I just stayed a day, the time to find where to go next and how to get there. I didn’t really visit anything; I just had enough time to get everything sorted. But I will come back here later in my trip to really visit.
I decided to go to Cambodia, so I look on internet the best way to get there. Find many very useful information and I realized that the border between Thailand and Cambodia was full of scam. I decided to make the trip all by myself instead of taking a mini bus “all included” from Bangkok to Siem reap as from what I have read it is much much longer and even if the price is really cheap, with all the scam they will put you in, it might end up being much more expensive!
So first I took a train during 6H for 1.5$, to get next to the border, then a tuk-tuk to reach the actual border where it is really chaotic and if you don’t know about all the scam you might pay a lot for everything. You can find fake Cambodian visa office on Thailand side that sell you fake visa, or charge you twice the price for the visa. Or some money exchange office that have some extremely poor rate, with a guy that find excuse to tell you that you have to change money now; and many other kind of scam like that.
After passing the Cambodian border, there is a free bus to bring you to the bus station, and from there I took a bus to go to Siem Reap, and one more scam with that, is that the bus will not go all the way to Siem Reap but just leave you at the entrance of the town, and “sell” you to a group of overpriced tuk tuk that wait to bring you in town (and they will try to bring you to the guest house of their choice to get a commission).
Except for the last one where you can’t really do anything about it I managed to avoid all the scams and the whole trip cost me about 35$, but if you fall into all the scams it can easily cost you up to 100$ !!!
As a summary about my trip in Thailand, as you probably noticed, I have seen only islands, most of the island in Thailand actually. I’ll see the rest of Thailand when I will come back in few weeks.
My feeling about that is reserved. The scenery everywhere is incredibly beautiful many amazing things to see, very nice place to relax, a lot of awesome party, I really love it. But in the other side, they really don’t know anything about sustainable development. They really don’t care about the environment, and I think that’s really sad and will be a big problem for the country. As long as they can make a little bit of money… they do it, and really don’t care at all about any consequences, for example it is definitively very bad to feed the monkey (for the environment, the neighbourhood, and for the monkey itself), everyone know it here, but every place where there is monkey you will find someone that sell “monkey food”. I have seen a place some people sell monkey food for tourist, and at the same time, the guardian of the monument nearby is forced to throw firecracker to make monkey go away. On One island they even throw heaps of fruit, water bottle and food on a small remote beach to make sure there is always monkey there and so they have one more touristic attraction to make money. Each tour stop on that “monkey beach” and throw some more fruit, and more bottle water next to their boat so the monkey come close and all the tourist get amazed by the monkey drinking from the bottle or eating food…. But they will never even think about taking the bottle back with then once it’s empty… so the plastic bottles stacks on the beach or in the ocean….
Also all very beautiful spot are always over exploited, there is always way more people visiting these places than what the places can really handle. They have no restriction about the number of people that can visit a place per day, as long as there is people that are ready to pay to see it, they will find a way to make it happen even if that mean stacking thousands of people on very small area.
It is almost impossible to find garbage bin anywhere so all the garbage stacks on the island and in the ocean… also it seems that they fish as much as they possibly can, regardless of the amount of fish in the ocean…
In other word, these islands are amazing to visit, but if you think about visiting it “one day” you better hurry up and make that day happen very soon!!
The beautiful island are getting slowly transformed into plastic islands, the crystal clear water are getting more and more petrol patch and boat pollution In the ocean the jellyfish are getting slowly replaced by plastic bags, the fish by straws, plastic bottles and glasses, and the corals by tires, bottles, cans and shit like that…
Overall it is still awesome place to visit; I had amazing time, just my “ecological freak” part get very sad to see what’s happening.
Koh Tao is considered as THE destination for diving. It is a very small island, and all around there is nice spot for snorkeling and diving.
When I arrived in koh tao it was very very busy and very hard to find accommodation at correct prices, I check 2 backpacker that was totally full, but got very lucky to find just after a shared room in a very big resort for the same price as the backpacker, so I was sharing a nice room with 3 other people, and had access to the swimming pool (for people not staying in the resort, just accessing to the swimming pool was the same price as what I paid for the bed) I arrived quite late so didn’t do much that day, just admiring a very nice sunset !!
The next day I just went walking in the north of the island to access to a nice view point and a beautiful snorkelling spot.
Because of a very inaccurate map that show footpath that doesn’t exist I end up walking again on the view point at night which is nice view too. But very depressing to see how many fishing boat there is, I think I have read somewhere that fishing with big light like that was very bad for ecology and the ocean is literally full of these boat. It’s sad to see that they really don’t care about the environment, on every aspect.
Next day I hired a Kayak and I went to a very small island just next to Koh Tao the island is beautiful, and the snorkelling here is supposed to be amazing.
Unfortunately as every beautiful place in Thailand it is totally over exploited, there is a lot of big boat coming daily from koh tao, koh phangan and koh samui. And you can see very clearly the impact on the environment, as soon as you go snorkeling around, most of the coral are now dead and there is garbage everywhere underwater, bottle, cloth, many plastics, and also many tires. There is still some nice fish, but much less than other area on this island.
As I was by kayak I stop at a much quieter place on my way back to see more fish and coral.
And for my last day on the island, I went by motor bike to visit all the south of the island. There is some nice view point, nice beach and nice snorkeling spot. The weather wasn't very good, but it was still a very good day. Also next to the main pier, there is a wreck, which is nice to see.
After many days in the island, it’s now time to go back on the mainland, my visa will expire soon, I have just enough time to get to Bangkok and continue to another country.
