Pictures of actual Central Highlands of Vietnam

How to drive a bus in the Central Highlands of Vietnam

(This will be repetitious to those who have been here before but it is still a new experience to some...thanks for your patience)

1. Load all passengers, scooters, etc. onto/ontop of bus (chickens now are forced to ride underneith)

2. On first class busses hand out a pastic wraped wet nap (sometimes of actual fabric) and a small bottle of water, so the customers feel refreshed after the long journey.
3. Now that everyone is loaded check the air pressure in the tires and stop at the next compressor if more is needed.
4. Once on the road make sure to honk at every possible oportunity: when you pass car, motorbike, bicycle, ox cart, tractor, 18 wheeler, cow (or other farm animal), person (old or young), any intersection. All of these honks seem to be necessary as people are a bit slower in Vietnam, than they were in Cambodia, to move over to the side of the road regardless of the speed or weight of the vehical approaching them.

5. You must also have a ticket taker on your bus, but the list of jobs of this person seems to have grown. Not only must they take tickets they must: open the door and yell to anyone standing on the side of the road who might want to get on the bus, open the door and yell at the scooters etc who were previously honked at by the driver (even reaching out to touch a few of them to make his point), sticking arm out of the window or open door to enable the driver to gauge the distance between the bus and the fully loaded truck that was being passed, and lastly the ticket taker must deliver small packages from passenger to waiting persons on the street (this must be done without stopping the bus).

6. Continue driving as quickly as possible while passing as many other entities on the road, don't stop until the specified bathroom stop...behind a resturant or until someone needs to vomit.
7. Now proceed to pass all those who happened to have passed you while you were unable to hold your position on the road.
8. Arrive at your destination and unload all luggage and passangers within 3 minutes.

Amazingly we have yet to hit anything. Wish us luck for the rest of the trip. We are going to take the train in a few days just for a change in venue.

A couple more

On our bus ride from Phneom Penh to HCMC we needed to get the tube in the tire changed. This was the shop where it happened. It was just next to the road, and luckly we had an extra tube on the bus. I think the little kid will be taking over his fathers business one day.

More pictures

Now here are some feet for, Kari's are the smaller norwegian ones (they tan a bit better than the larger irish ones.)

And then a photo from the War Remnants Museam.

Start of random pictures

For those of you who wanted pictures of us...well Jason is carrying the camera so he keeps taking pictures of me, so here are a couple. The first is a set of signs in downtown HCMC, the second is in the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Burgeoning Ho Chi Minh City

Former Saigon, current HCMC appears to be riding the growing economic wave of some of its neighbors like China. Although the Saigon history provided for the tourist is still heavily steeped in the recent American and French wars and occupations, the face of the new city is looking forward to good ol fashioned free market economics. Large high rises are jutting up throughout the business district and to the north of the city. Scooters swarm the streets and sidewalks alike and are becoming more affordable with $500 bargain Chinese imported models. Italian and French designer stores rest just down the block from the street side pho soup vendors and fruit stands. We made the tourist visit to the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels when we weren't out playing "Frogger" crossing the streets for fun.

Cambodian Reflections

It is sad how little I knew about Cambodia before our visit there. Honestly I first learned about the country from the Dead Kennedys song, then we watched "The Killing Fields", but that only captures 5 years of brutal history.
We meet a french couple who said that they don't go to any of the touristy sites. I can see her logic, if a person wants to see the people and culture with out being surrounded by OTHER tourists, you have to avoid these places. After thinking further about these statements I realized that I would be missing the entire reason for my travels. How could I understand the current people-their pride in heritage and culture, and their pain without visiting these sites along with the 10000 daily other "white" and Japanese tourists? Visiting Angkor Wat is a reminder that civilizations rise and fall continuously around the globe, the city that was over a million people in the 12th century (while London had 50,000) is now just stones and ficus. Angkor was the capital of a thriving empire with roads, hospitals, with an incredible development of arts and religion. Then, during the post French independence time of the 1950's & 60's, Cambodia was a prosperous autonomous state. Then the war in neighboring Vietnam helped to destabilize the power structure. Who knows for sure but this might have helped to open the door for the Khmer Rouge to enter. Emerging from that era, like the new seedlings after a wild fire, is today's Cambodia. The people of Cambodia smiled just as much as the 'smiling' Thais. In 1998 40% of the population was under the age of 15. We saw at least a dozen wedding parties in the week that we were there. There is still great hope for the kingdom of Cambodia (if only Vietnam would get their fingers out of the cookie jar).

The Dry Season

After another productive day at Angkor Wat, and sending Forrest on his way back to the states, we spent our last night in Siem Reap, got up early for a bus ride to our boat for the day of travel to Battambang. We a person sets out on this type of trip you are never exactly sure what you are going to get. We got a mini bus full of 16 of our new closest friends, an incrediable boat ride, with 15 those who will become our newest closest friends. Now it is the dry season.....which means that the river into Battambang is low, so we were warned regarding the boat getting stuck in the mud etc. But the locals have come up with a new way for us to not get stuck in the the mud, but get pretty dirty none the less. We left Siem Reap at 6:00 on the bus, got to the boat dock about 6:45, the boat left at 7:00 as promised. After a short journey down river we came to Tonle Sap (the big lake in the middle of Cambodia), the entreance to the the lake was complete with a scene out of Water World, where everything: churches, school, homes, basketball courts, was out floating on the water. Then about 1/2 way across we went through a hole in the fence, this fence seemed to span the entire length of the lake. Then we were off back up another river to Battambang, about 3/4 of the distance around 13:00, we stopped at the side of the river and they motioned to us to get out of the boat. Our bags were then removed from the boat and put in the back of a Nissan pick up truck. We then climbed into the back of the Nissan pick up truck..... all 15 of us for the dusty dirty hour and a half ride into town. Travelling like the locals, but they would have been able to get 20 people easy into that truck. The road that we traveled was more a farm road with large ditched for irrigation flow during the wet season.
Today we are taking a 'bus' to Phnom Penh, should be much easier.

New influences for the residents of Siem Reap

Siem Reap is the town that services Angkor Wat just 3 minutes down the road. 10 years ago it was likely still a sleepy little town with small river flowing through it and a series of three-storied french colonial buildings at its center. Today it is showing the signs of an tourist economic boom town. Numerous 4-5 star resort hotels are now prominent parts of the landscape. The international currency is flowing through the town, the ATMs spit out US dollars, and unfortunately we hear that 70% of the Angkor Wat entrance concessions are contracted to a private Vietnamese entrepreneur. Still there is some economic growth at all levels. We stumbled upon a brand new three-storied mini-mall yesterday. At first we could not understand what the event was that was presumably happening on the upper floors up the escalator stairs that was causing such a stir with the children and parents. Then we realized that the event WAS the escalator. Many of the locals had never ridden one. It was a magical event for us to watch for well over a half an hour.

Angkor Wat (Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, & tuk tuks)

The Tuk Tuk (moped rickshaw) delivered us to a nice guest house the night before in Siem Reap. Today we hopped into another one to become orientated with some of the greater temple complex that includes Angkor Wat. The Khmer kingdom, which had reached its peak between the 12th and 14th centuries, constructed an enormous complex of buildings over many square kilometers. The most famous spectacular and well preserved of course is Angkor Wat.

Bangkok to Siem Reap Day #2

After a 4 1/2 hour bus ride to the Cambodian boarder the real adventure began. State route #6, the road from the boarder to Siem Reap, is notorious for over priced taxi rates and 140 km of dirt and gravel or impassible clay mud after a rain. Our journey went rather smooth, some haggling at the boarder for a car (typical) and then a smooth.... well not really smooth but quick, dry, and exciting. After a rain last night other travelers have found themselves in a bus stuck in the mud to it's axles, stranded 40km from Siep Reap.

Streets of Bangkok Day 1

After over 33 hours of air travel we finally made it!!! Waking up on the 2nd floor of a teak and concrete guest house to the calls of the local birds was surreal. After meeting up with Forrest who took the train down from Chiang Mai, we explored the streets of China Town including Wat Traimit and the fruit and flower market. The 5.5 ton solid gold Buddha was formerly disguised under stucco until a moving accident in the 1960s revealed the actual contents.


In one of the streets in China Town we stumbled upon the "car salvage street" which contained piles of neatly organized of clutches, gear boxes, axles, transmissions, etc.


The fruit/veggie/flower market, is only one of the many markets of Bangkok. It covers at least 8 square blocks with fresh bananas, tropical fruits, chilies and spices and traditional local vegetables. The flower market supplies the enormous daily demand for fresh orchids and marigolds for traditional offerings.

Good-bye cold flat land, Hello tropical Thailand

We are leaving at 5:30am to O'Hare then to Seoul before arriving in Bangkok at midnight the next day. The long anticipated journey is finally beginning.