DAY 13

MONDAY 30 JUNE 2014

NORTH TO HANOI

It was just an overnight stay at Phan Lan Hotel in Ho Chi Min City. It was a friendly hotel down a little lane of similar small establishments. All narrow and similar height providing 20 or so rooms.

I got up around 5:30 am to start typing but also decided to make a cup of tea in my travel cup using a new very fast in cup element. Got into typing and forgot I had the water heating. Suddenly I looked up and into the bathroom where my cup was in flames. I was using a electric socket in the bathroom and the cup was on the basin. Action! Unplug and grab the handle and get under the tap and run water to deal with the flames. Result – no damage, but a useless cup with a hole in it and a heating element in melted pieces. Pity about my much traveled cup though.

Breakfast at 8:30 am was a thin omelet, baguette, banana, half cup of orange juice and half cup coffee. A fairly standard breakfast in S.E. Asian hotels of the level I stay in.

We had booked a couple of taxis to take us to the airport and right on time they were at the roadside ready for us. Modern Hondas. We moved at speed through a variety of side streets, back streets and main roads. The driver insensately sounding the horn to warn vehicles he was passing or to encourage them to move aside – which they never did. But we made good time and arrived at the Domestic terminal where the largest crowds were in the budget airline area – Jetstar Pacific and Vietjet and another I think.

We walked across to the International terminal looking for a SIM card for Phil's phone which we got. He was then able to clear his emails and found one from Jetstar telling us our plane would depart one hour late. By this stage though I had found that my SIM which I bought last night was no longer picking up the Internet although calls still worked but not texting. Strange. Another issue were the steady stream of adverts texted in in Vietnamese. Every time I tried to do something on the phone an advert would interrupt. Rubbish said a local.

Check in took time and Becky had to sign a wavier form taking responsibility for me because of my mental and physical state. Why? Who knows. Age perhaps? What ever the reason, we all had a good laugh about it and I have the form as a souvenir. My bag was 15kgs.

Loading was by the get on a bus and be taken to the plane system – packed standing in bus, mad rush to the stairs to get up to the plane. Loaded from both ends so confusion for some trying to get on at the wrong end. Much to my surprise there was enough overhead locker space.

Flight was around two hours with the time filled in by staff sellin g meals, snacks and toys. I still have a difficulty with the apparently high prices. In reality my coffee (local 3 in 1) and a cookie at 25,000 Dong is really a little over $US1.00 and last nights Indian curry at 163,000Dong was under $US10, more like $US8.

Landing at Hanoi was a bit bumpy coming down through the clouds. By the time we had been bused into the terminal our luggage was on the conveyor waiting for us. Well some was and the remainder followed. Fastest delivery I ever have come across.

A man with a sign reading Rebekah Sussex was at the exit and in no time we were in the pre booked hotel van, rather than a couple ot more expensive taxis, heading for the city. We travelled along a modern four lane highway passing m]alternatively rice paddy fields housing and large factories and industrial complexes. One very large Panasonic collection of buildings which I assumed was a manufacturing plant. We passed over a very wide river which was most likely the Red River.

After that we came into the city proper passing rather fascinating houses of a real mixture of styles and designs. They all tended to be very narrow, one room wide and several stories high. Quite cute and some looked as if they came right our of some children's story book.

Once we left the highway and merged into normal crowded streets we had arrived at the Old Quarter, where our hotel, the Holiday Hotel, was located along with many others. Same narrow building with several floors and no elevator. I respect of my age it seems I have been relocated from the fifth floor to the second and into what the call the VIP room. Main feature is it is a bit larger and has a sofa and coffee table along with a double bed. Very friendly and helpful staff. Free wi fi and surprisingly my phone has started to pick up Internet even without the free wi fi. Perhaps my card has solved its issues? Time will tell. Still no Face Book though. I really do think it is blocked here.

We wandered up the road a few minutes to a little restaurant called Gekko for a meal. We thought it was cute and were later surprised to find an identical one around the corner. Perhaps it is a chain? Children had pizza,although Molly chose Pumpkin soup, adults were more adventurous with my having prawn and vegetable in coconut cream and supposedly cooked in a clay pot although it was not served in it. Then a slow walk around the block and back to the hotel for an early night.

Our hotel is down this street. Some of the narrow houses, but not the prettiest.

Day 13

DAY 12

ON THE ROAD AGAIN
Sunday 29^th June 2014

Hello from Vietnam!

First time I have every been able to say that.

Tomorrow, I plan to start the day with “Good Morning Vietnam!” Nothing original I know and it has probably been said a million time.

But that is tomorrow. What about today?

The day started with a 6:10 am alarm for me although Phil and Becky were already up, to do last minute packing. The two tuk tuks arrived right on time at 7:30am and amazingly managed seven passengers and all the luggage. We were were at the bus departure office by 5 to 8 am. For office imaging something smaller that an a NZ garage. Many of the passengers were already sitting on chairs outside waiting. We past our passports over for checking and around 8:15 boarding began.

Bus was quite comfortable and full. I had an aisle seat with a Cambodian lady next to me. What she lacked in English she made up for by almost non stop chatter toher friends in the seats behind.

The trip took around 6 ½ hours including 25 minutes lunch break (pork and noodle soup at $2) and a bit longer than that going through the boarder controls for both countries. Fairly relaxed process, just longish waits. The bus announcer was careful to always say “The Kingdom Of Cambodia and the Republic of Vietnam” The bus had a driver (of course) the woman hostess and announcer and a young male who didn't seem to have any real job. Besides announcing the hostess also gave out moist tissues, bottle water and the snack box (sweet cake and cheese crusant um spell check not a help there ).

The main road had a few bumps but was pretty good for Cambodia. It was Street 1 is the main highway, but only a single lane in either direction. It was pretty crowded with in Phnom Penh but less so once the city.was left behind. The driver was constantly sounding his horn as that is the customary means of informing a vehicle ahead that you were going to pass them.

While we did travel through rural areas some of the time, usually we were passing farm houses, hamlets, villages and through small towns. Some of the farm land looked quite scruffy but other areas were much more attractive. The above is true of our travel through both countries.

On the bus the television played a feature film 'Fast and Furious 6' quite a lot of Candid Camera type ex television programmes and local karaoke and some sort of comedy show. We were not actually bored, but not actually interested either.

About half way we crossed the wide Mekong River by ferry boat. There were a couple doing shuttle service across the river, so we didn't have to wait very long to drive onto it.

The Cambodian side had a dozen or so casinos to catter for the Vietnam day tripers.

The roads on the Vietnam side are much better. We drove along a highway with double lanes on both sides of a centre median strip which was either a wall or often rows of shrubs and low trees.

It didn't take too long to reach Ho Chi Min City aka Saigon. Many of the streets are tree lined, there is a pleasant path along the river running through the central area. We spotted a number of people fishing along the banks.

Streets are just as crowded as Phnom Penh, but there are more modern stylish buildings. The bus destination was a stop beside a large park area between two busy roads. Looked quite pretty as we drove along beside it in the rain.

Our hotel, Phan Lan Hotel was down a hotel, guest house and hostel filled lane diagonally across the road from our bus stop. Perfect arranging. Hotel gave us a good welcome and is quite small, five floors with just three rooms on each floor. Obviously, the building is quite narrow. No elevator but they have a hoist to bring the bags up to the room. That's good as I am on fourth floor, the boys on fifth floor and the girls and parents on third floor.

While the others went off to the war surplus market near by to buy the boys a few bags and pouches, I went off in search of a SIM card. Plenty being sold in the area as this is a tourist and back packers area. I just chose a stall where the lady could sell them but tell you nothing. The price quoted varied and in the end I paid nothing like any quote for the card and a top up which may or may not be unlimited data for a month. Her son tried to help, then a motor scooter friend who knwe what he was doing but not good English. Finally a young woman arrived who could translate for them.

I did some wander around the area near the hotel even though it was raining at that point. Got lots of cyclo drivers wanting to provide their services, lots of invitations into bars and restaurants usually by young women standing at the door and one offer of a certain weed.

We met up again and went off for a family meal together. We only needed to go around the corner from the hotel for a large choice. We checked out a couple Vietnamese restaurants as the country is know for its lovely food – but we went Indian and that was a good choice as the food was delicious.

I must remember to give Phil 163,000 dong as my share of the bill. I think this is somewhere around $10.

DAY 11

Saturday 28^th June 2014

SNAKES ALIVE!

The day began as normal until Becky was taking a basket of washing out to the laundry, which is a shed attached to the back of the house. As she opened the door she sort of jumped and gasped. On the floor in front of here was a dark coloured snake. It was between the door and the base of the washing machine.

I happened to be there and can afirm that she did not scream. She was surprised however, we both were. Having decided the snake was dead, there were a few ants crawling over its tail, the thing becane to move.

So doing the sensible thing she went and got Phil to sort it out. He came with a few implements such as a spade and a long stick to get it out of the shed and onto the path. Then while Becky held it down just behind its neck, form a distance with the long stick, Phil rushed inside and returned with an axe.

Phil will now go down in family history, not as a dragon slayer, but as a snake slayer. He is now 'Phil the executioner'.

The event proved an exciting start to the day for everybody who was awake and up. That's everyone except one who slept through the whole exciting moments.We assume that the snake had managed to find its way through a hole in the back wall. On the other side is a large area of undeveloped waste land. It is an area where the children have been building a play area with old bricks and building waste. I suspect they will give it a miss for a while now.

The rest of the day was an anti-climax after that.

Becky and I took Molly across town to the meeting point with a little friend from school. It was a half way point between the two homes. It did involve driving through a few kilometres of heavy slow moving congested traffic. Then after the drop off, Becky had to do a U turn through several lanes of traffic to head back home. It was a manouver which one only does in Phnom Penh where it is and accepted process and where the drivers in both directions let you through.

Preparations for the trip to Vietnam took our attention for the rest of the day.

DAY 8

WEDNESDAY 25^th JUNE 2014

Americano strong $3

Cafe Mocha $3.50

Cafe Latte Medium $3

Iced Orange and Pineapple juice $3

You may begin to think that all we do in Phnom Penh is to go out for coffee and your brunch. This is not true, but my being there is a good excuse to try a few places out. The city has an ever changing range of cafes and restaurants, so there is always somewhere new to try out.

This one opened in January and is run by a friendly Korean woman with quite good English. We had a chat for a while as there was no other customers and I had a look at their professional roasting set up. I was also interested in the drip system they had for providing a coffee syrup for their iced coffees. The can also do single origin blends. Very advanced for Cambodia, but I am sure that with the speed things are changing here that others will quickly follow.

Becky decided that the latte which was served in a tulip cup was a good match for a flat white. I decided that my Americano strong was no match for a Long Black, but may have been a good example of Americano.

Actually we dropped in for the coffee after we had been to iONE. This is the Apple computer agency in Cambodia and they have recently relocated their service department to a flash new multi story block on one of the busy main roads near the centre of town. We had to drop off an iPad which needed a new screen following an accidental drop a couple of days earlier. The can not or do not replace the screen. Rather they send the unit to Apple in Singapore who replace it with an identical new unit. The cost of this will be little more than what a screen replacement could be assumed to cost. They will hold the replacement until we return from Vietnam. All seemed to be a very organised process.

One of the things that interests me staying here is the way in which the grandchildren all have various activities and personal projects which they can quietly settle down to. Bryn has spent much of hare time designing and cutting out a leather holster for his survival knife. Pippa decided to rearrange and tidy her room, involved shifting furniture as well. And they all have books to read as well. Meanwhile Becky checked out accommodation prices for Hanoi for our stay next week. Of course a lot to look at even in our budget price range. Amazing how much tax and a service charge can bump up the room cost. In the end we decided on a place to stay and have the rooms confirmed.

I

S E Asia Travels 2014 continued

DAY 7

Tuesday 24^th June 2014.

It was an 'at home' morning with  my youngest granddaughter's  school friend  coming to play. She lives with her parents in a village about an hour away in a rice growing rural area. The two girls were both pretty excited to be together as it was the first time that they had been able to get together like this. When her mother came to collect her I had a chance to chat to her about the work she is involved in. She is part of an organization which focuses on bringing safe water systems to the rural villages. This includes rain water collection and filtering. They also have a concrete toilet unit with septic tank. All of this is tied in with hygiene education. It all sounded very worthwhile.

During the afternoon my daughter  her daughters, Pippa and I drove to the Hope International Christian School, to choose some books from the Primary school library. I was interested to see how much the junior school has expanded since I was last here two years ago.

We then drove a kilomtre of two to the Savvana Shopping Centre. First was to recharge the data part of my SMART sim card. They have a scheme that you purchase a pre-pay $2 top up and then phone in to SMART Exchange to convert it into $30 data credit. An amazing idea which Becky and Phil use all the time – and why not. Unfortunately, after the assistants had tried all sorts of ways to get my phone done like this, they realised that I had a traveller's promotion SIM and SMART Exchange would not work. So I paid and extra $1 and got a traveller's 1GB of data. I do not plan to upload any other videos to You Tube before we head off to Vietnam on Sunday. So 1 GB should be enough. I am using my phone as a wifi hot spot to link my laptop into.

Meanwhile, my daughter and the girls headed up to the third floor to the ceramic painting centre. The girls each bought a shape which they then painted at the work benches. They certainly enjoyed the activity and ended up with a couple of results they were especially proud of. 

Then it was off to the Apple service centre to see if they could replace the shattered screen of a iPad. Seems the answer is no, but they can sell a replacement at a reduced price. We just need to work out how to back up the files to somewhere safe, when your Apple cloud storage is full. Now that's going to occupy us for a few hours tonight.

At Savanna, I checked out the DVD store but it was so congested that I decided not to bother hunting anything out. I have bought quite a number of disks here on previous visits. After visiting the new Aeon Mall on Saturday, this older shopping centre certainly looked a little tired. We did drop into the Lucky Supermarket on the ground floor where I discovered a bottle of French red wine labled Cuvee Laurence. Of course I just had to buy this to try out during the week. 

There was the usual mid to late afternoon rainfall with some wind. Temperatures seem to be a little lower today and conditions are much more bearable.

Finally spotted one of the ghekos which live around the outside of the house. But this one was in Toby's room and looked like it came through a small corner gap. It was about 300 mm long and a pale pastle green. During the night these creatures make loud calling noises. On my first night here I thought that the sound must have been some weird clock chiming the hours; until I tried to count the chimes and found more than 12 in a row. They are surprisingly loud for such a small creature.

Across the lane is the home and workshop of an undertaker. This morning a tuk tuk arrived with planking for coffins stacked up on it. The undertaker has a funeral tuk tuk parked out front. It has a construction like an enclosed garden shed built on it. Highly colourful with decorations of a Buddhist style all around it.

Put a new video up on You Tube. During the process my phone hotspot ran out of data credit with only 86% of the up loading completed. A few hours later when I returned with a recharged phone the up load continued without any difficulties. Something new learned. This morning my You Tube views total clocked in at 8,754.

PHNOM PENH UPDATE

DAY 6 Monday 23^rd June 2014

Today's main activity was a trip into the central area of Phnom Penh for lunch at Wills Brunch Cafe. I had been here on a previous visit when it was under different management as The Lounge I think it was called. Some changes and a different menu. Nice coffee. And the food fine as well. I did notice that having a second shot in the $US2.25 long black, cost me and extra 75 US cents. Which pretty much brought it up towards NZ prices.

Nice air conditioning and fast free wi fi, so I was able to load a video up to You Tube very quickly.

LANDING AT PHNOM PENH 3' 59”

http://youtu.be/UoYJq8VxUhQ

Becky used the time to check out accommodation in Ho Chi Min City for Sunday night. She used Trip Advisor and I checked on Hostelworld. Interesting to note that we were getting cheaper prices for the same sites through Trip Advisor. It looks like we have booked into a small boutique hotel very close to where our bus ride from Cambodia will end up at. It was good to have that sorted out. One four bed room, one twin and a single room all confirmed. All a bit different and more complicated to my normal booking of a single room.

\ No doubt about it but the grandchildren are certainly very confident with being out in a cafe. Ever keen Toby works on his video editing.

Then it was off to Monument Books again to purchase a Vietnam guidebook that I had checked out last time. Of course the grandchildren made a beeline to their favourite section for a quick read.

I enjoy travelling around the streets of Phnom Penh. There is always so much to see, with tuk tuks rushing along with all sorts of loads, not just passengers, there are equally interesting loads on motor cycle powered flat trailers. Then there are the thousands of motor scooters with combinations of loads and riders, up to four on a bike seems common.

Then there are the road side stalls and tiny shops we pass and always there are labourers at work. Interesting.

I am beginning to work out directions again and the streets around the house are becoming more familiar. As are the streets I learn from previous visits. The problen is just that I have not yet connected the two, so I have the this gap in the middle.

The usual afternoon downpour came and mostly went. But the heavy clouds hastened the arrival of darkness. It was pretty much night by 5:45 pm. Phil had been working in a village clinic over an hour away on the city edge and had a long often damp ride back in the darkness. He got back after 7:30 pm.

There was a chance to watch another episode of The Midwife on DVD before bedtime.

Day Five

This was Sunday and we all decided that a quiet day at home would be appropriate after the rather busy previous day. Unfortunately for my son-in-law, he still had to front up at University and run the second of two Sunday seminars on Sedation for a group of local dentists. So it was a 6 am departure for him and his motor bike. The early departure is needed to give him time to get through the daily traffic congestion.

We had passed the Faculty of Dentistry building yesterday and saw where he works. He has quite a distance to travel each day to get there.

However, a quiet day for the rest, which started off with my 9 year old granddaughter making pancakes for breakfast to go with syrup and fruit. Nice to be eating Dragon fruit, fresh pawpaw and mango again. Later in the day, I had mangostein with its thick outer case rather than a skin protecting the inner white sweet flesh. She has become a practised pancake maker.

Other than a trip out to the nearest equivalent of a corner dairy, or more a local supperette, One on One, which is across the road from Hope International Christian School. It was a quiet day with everyone focusing on their own activities or watching a Mr Bean DVD. My oldest grandson is focused on making costumes and various articles for and Ancient Roman soldier and for other characters. My 12 year old grandson was video editing and successfully working out audio features of his new Sony Vegas editing programme. I am very impressed at the way the four grandchildren can settle down to their own interests and activities.

We had invited an ex Howick family around for tea and they duly arrived, four on a single motorcycle as happens here, during a heavy monsoon downpour. So we had a great time with the family. We have known him since he was an infant. These days along with his wife they focus on working with the disadvantaged and those at risk. Particularly young people. They have set up a mentor programme called Alongsiders and this has taken off in a really exciting way.

The children had a lot of fun together.

Our friends headed off home between show ers around 10:40 pm. It had been a really nice time.

Travels in S E Asia 2014

Well I Have Got Here

19^th June 2014

This will not be a regular or daily update – have given up on trying to maintain a daily blog of my travels. In fact I have done a bit of travelling since the last time I actually did maintain a travel blog. Rather this will be just a few descriptive comments ( or rambles) as the journey continues.

So here we go with the fact that I got dropped off at the Auckland Airport before the check in desks actually opened. A bit unusual for me. So I joined the opening stampede once the check in counters opened, not sure why as I already had my seat pre-booked for like or the sum of an extra $25. It was at check in that I was told that the plane was late arriving and would be that much late leaving. My bag was given a 'Hot Transfer' label. In the end the 12:15am departure was more like 1 am. That was to mean that I would have about 1 hour in transit at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

The economy class was full. My seat was 21 J, which was the aisle seat with one other seat next to the window. I was thankful that:

a. I was not seated in the middle of the 5 seat centre block

b. That I had a friendly neighbour – an Early Childhood teacher from Thames.

c. That although minor turbulence stopped each hot drinks round, at least the meals came through ok. A sort of potato and roast chicken with fruit salad after take off and a fritta and fruit breakfast two hours before

d. That Malaysian Airways still has seat pitch (space between seats) of 34 inches.

e. That the passenger in front did not ease his backrest into a semi recline. In fact I didn't notice anyone doing that either.

At KL it was a brisk walk to the inter-terminal railway shuttle and then down H wing to the Phnom Penh plane. That boarded very slowly as there was only one x ray machine and we even had to remove shoes.

The flight to Phnom Penh was on a very modern Airbus and I had booked a window seat so that I could look out on the cloud cover and then the ground as we landed in Cambodia. Just a bit over one hour travel time. A chicken and salad roll, tub of fruit salad and white wine provided a pleasant snack and time filler.

Visa on arrival went smoothly and quickly as did immigration and walk through customs. Biggest hold up was organising a SIM card before finally exiting. This turned out to be a Travellers' promotion with the problem that you can not up grade the data amount as locals can via SMART Exchange, where by $2 prepay is exchanged into $30 data. Sounds a great idea, it works, just not for visitors.

It was very nice to see my daughter and the four grandchildren waiting with happy smiles. The ride back to their home was a quick re-introduction to travel on the ground in Cambodia. The toll road which is supposed to be quick was under repair but with little sign of actual work in progress. So it was very rutted and pot holed, but still crowded and slow moving. Then along various streets with varing traffic densities, but mostly busy with tuk tuks and motor bikes and of course varying condition of road surface.

It was nice to arrive at my daughter and son in law's house. I had not been to this one previously. It is located down a narrow single vehicle width lane apparently without a name.

Their home is double story with a large ground floor family room i.e. lounge and dinning, plus a kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. This bath room actually has heated shower water which while not really 'hot' is enough to take the temperature to a pleasant luke warm.

Upstairs are bedrooms opening up onto an open common space. Also a bathroom with a cold shower. I am particularly appreciativeof Toby's willingness to give up his bedroom for me.

It was pretty hot when I arrived, well into the 30's and very humid. That and the long trip without a good night's sleep was the excuse to have mid afternoon lie down which became a sleep. When I woke I really did think I had slept through the night rather than the couple of hours it had really been.

See the video: LANDING AT PHNOM PENH 3' 59”

http://youtu.be/UoYJq8VxUhQ

Day Two seemed a little cooler. Perhaps even less humidity, although we did have heavy rain mid afternoon. In the morning we drove into the City Mall to book seats for the afternoon session of 'How To Train Your Dragon Pt2' at the Legion Cinema on the top floor of the Mall building. The interesting thing about the tickets for children is that the right to a child ticket is based on height. So Pippa had to stand against a wall measuring scale and this 9 year old found that being just above the 1.3m cutoff point; she was an adult. I think she rather liked that. Ticket prices: Child $US3, Adults $US5 and this for a new release in 3D.

When we returned for the afternoon screening complete with tubs of popcorn and cans of coke, I found that our cinema (called a Hall) was every bit as modern as anything back home. In fact it proved to be one of my better 3D viewing experiences. Hall 1 would have seated around 200. They screened a cell warning. 'Turn it off before we come to get it”

While the Mall is modern and has many smaller shops, it is set out more like a modern department store than the sort of Mall we know in New Zealand. What did interest me was the DVD stand with a large range of modern movies. I was able to buy several from recent NZ Film Festivals

We also called into a nearby Lucky supermarket so I was able to recall my memories of Cambodian products and packaging. I always find it rather fascinating to wander round supermarkets in overseas countries.

During our travels around the streets I was able to try out a small and cheap ($NZ63) Thompson Action Camera which I had bought just a day or so before setting out on this trip. Looking at the test footage later I was very impressed with what such a matchbox sized camera could achieve.

See the video:

THOMPSON ACTION CAMERA REVIEW 5' 53”

http://youtu.be/OiALye8mOxs

Day Three.

We spent the morning around the house with everyone engaged in their own quiet activities. Toby and I spend several hours sitting side by side working through video editing and looking at his version of Sony Vagas – a popular editing programme. I also worked on a couple of videos to upload to You Tube at some stage soon. One is a review of the little action camera. Have now worked out how to use my phone as a wi fi hot spot – easy really.

We took Pippa to a friends house for a sleep over. As a result, like yesterday after the movie, we were driving in the Phnom Penh rush hour. Well truthfully on the Phnom Penh streets, every hour seems like rush hour. It was just that this time was worse, not only on the main streets but also in the narrower side streets. Thousands of motorcycles some with up to four some how fitted onto the cycle. Often one would be an infant held in the arms of a rider or the driver. There are also the tuk tuks loaded down with all sorts of high loads as were some of the motor cycles too. Fascinating to watch and wonder about the safety of the child.

There are a few rules for driving here – in my opinion. Do whatever you want too, but do it slowly and carefully helps. So if you want to change direction and drive into the on coming flow just keep to the edge – either edge that is – or wherever you want to go. Having a large vehicle helps. If you have a large black Lexus with dark windows, then you seem to have the right to drive with a sense of priority over everyone else. And if you want to go down a road on the opposite side of your street, then just aim for it and slowly edge through the opposing traffic flow. Everyone will move around you except perhap a Lexus or large truck.

In the evening we drove to a small Indian Dosa restaurant. Cheap but so nicely cooked and presented. I was very impressed. Only problem was the traffic to go through to get to the other side of town. Next to the Dosa restaurant was a DVD shop with more interesting titles. We did have some discussion when I realised that I was being charged $1.50 a disk instead of the more common $1 and the sixth one free. The price came down.

So we finished the day watching another episode of 'The Midwife' on DVD. At present the family do not have TV and most likely will stay that way. It is easy enough to get recent series on DVD and watch at your own speed as it were. I was pleased to get two series of 'The Newsroom', a show I have only seen part of one episode of previously.

Day Four – Saturday.

An early start to travel across town to pick up Pippa from her overnight stay. Her friend lived more on the edge of Phnom Penh and we travelled not only along some congested roads, but also over some very rough surfaces. Then it was off to Mercy Clinic to get the children's inoculations updated. Proceeds from this central clinic fund work in the slum areas. Run by a local doctor who trained and is registered in the USA.

Next stop was one of the city's main markets. Orussey Market is one more used by locals and it does not have the touristy stalls which the Central and Russian Markets do. Here we were also able to book our bus tickets for Vietnam. The bus company will also organise our entry visas.

I didn't find Orussey to be as crowded as the other markets and the aisles were less congested. Less pressure to buy from the stall holders. Or more like no pressure. It is always interesting to wander around markets like this and although lots of stalls have the same goods it is interesting to especially spot the local hardware needs and the tools available. On the electronic stands there were lots of USB flash drives with emphasis on 2 – 4 Gb and less on 8 – 16 Gb, I did see a few 32Gb capacity. SDHC cards all seemed to be class 4 which is very slow and really totally unsuitable for any movie making use. Low capacity cards were the order of the day. The two brands were Adata and Transcend and their packaging did look like these brands have back home. There was a stand with Sony 10 inch tv monitors stacked up. But all analogue in a world fast changing to digital.

We stopped at an outside stall to buy cool drinks. The first quoted price of 1500 R was quickly corrected by the boss (?) to be 2000 R. So we guessed that the first was the locals price and we paid the tourist price. Two tier pricing. 2000R = 50 cents NZ. We mostly chose Coke or Sprite. The process of serving is for the bottle to be opened and poured into a plastic cup filled with ice. A straw is put through the round top cover and then the cup is placed in a small plastic carry bag, while the stall owner retains the glass bottle. The Coke tasted right, came in the traditional shaped bottle but was rather flat. It lacked any real bubbles. But it was nice to have a cool drink as the outside temperature was in the 30's and inside the market building must have been higher.

Back in the car which was parked on the roof car park and more driving along a mixture of wide boulevards and narrow congested streets, finally inching along to the car park enterance of Phnom Penh's newest attraction, the Aeon Mall. Three floors of shopping and a fourth for car parking. Having just opened this week, it was crowded, actually very crowded. Full of excited shoppers especially fashionably dressed young people.

The ground floor included a huge fresh vegetables and fresh fruit area every bit as y as any supermarket has back home. Certainly a vast difference to the local market stalls. Next to it was a large wine and beer area with a big range from around the world. Big price range too. There was a big supermarket all neatly set out with a couple of eager young staff to greet you at each aisle. My young researchers also known as grandchildren, inspected the breakfast cereals selection. Not big enough, not enough choice in the 'flakes and things'. Was a larger range of international 'healthy' musseli alternatives – at a price.

Ground floor also had a range of meals and snacks for sale. All being prepared in spotless kitchens areas. Noodles, sushi, bugers, pizza, and varieties of local foods. Plus a bakery which would not be out of place anywhere at home. Even with two payment counters and lots of staff, the queues moved slowly.

Floor two was fragrance level with lots of recognizable brands each with there own stand and staff. That greeted you at the top of the escalators, which were soon to brake down and stop working, resulting in congestion as crowds squeezed in lines up and down the same stopped escalator steps.

There was a large area of whiteware and home appliances. Lots of Samsung, LG and Panasonic. The same brands featured in the big television area with Sony joining in. No unknown third level brands here. Samsung where featuring their new curved screen tv sets. My first reaction is that the more expensive 4K technology sets certainly had sharper image but the actual sets are too small. Even a 55 inch curved set is too small in my opinion. I feel that sets need to be really large for the curve to engulf you into the picture. At one point two curved screens were positioned next to each other to create a wider curve and that did begin to work.

The Mall floors were all ivory coloured glossy stone tiles. So everywhere there were staff going around mopping them. One woman was on her knees with a cloth spot cleaning. Lots of staff everywhere. Lack of rubbish bins in the eating areas so that finished plasic containers and bags and unfinished food were just placed on the floor beside seating.

The Mall is not yet completely finished and there were large areas still curtained off with construction noises coming through.

While the Mall is impressive, I am told that most goods can already be found on sale in the city. But it is more 'up market' than other city Malls I have visited here. The car park exits by ramp from the fourth floor down onto a busy narrow street. Already regularly congested the car park traffic just adds to the confusion. Whistle blowing security and traffic staff only add to that. The exit took at least 20 minutes and we had parked right near the fourth floor exit ramp. While other Mall parking is 1000R (25 cents), here it was 3000.

I guess for me the thing is the tremendous contrast that exists between the two markets I visited today. That they represent the range of life styles and economic levels existing side by side in the city. There will be big sections of the population who will never visit Aeon Mall, who will never be able to afford to shop here.

See the video:

TWO MARKETS IN PHNOM PENH

http://youtu.be/aN7CN175lBE

By Hurtigruten from Tromso to Lofoten Islands

I put this video together to show to a Senior Citizens' club recently. The highlight of the sector I traveled on was to call into the Trollfjord, which is a very narrow no exit fjord. The large ship just had enough space to turn around in. A sort of three point turn for a ship. There were also some very close high rock walls on both sides which created a very tight narrow gap to sail through.
Another feature was filming in the midnight daylight of the northern 24 hour day.

King Crab Safari -Kirkenes, Norway

This is a shorter version of my video. I trimmed it down to include in a talk to a local Senior Citizens' Group recently.

                  Kuala Lipis is a town in central Malaysia which is not really on the tourist trail.
                                    I hope you  will view this short glimpse of the town.

 

Here is another travel video from Malaysia. I hope you enjoy my look around Kotu Bharu. 

HAVE A LOOK AT MY TRAVEL VIDEO FROM THE CAMERAON HIGHLANDS IN MALAYSIA.

   HAVE A LOOK AT MY TRAVEL VIDEO FROM DENMARK

Khmer War Crimes Trial

Building and materials

THE KHMER ROUGE TRIAL

(revised 16 August 2012)

No doubt if you are a tourist to Cambodia and to Phnom Penh in particular, you will most likely include something about the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot in your visit. Every second tuktuk driver in the centre of town will offer to take you to the Killing Fields or the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S 21).

These memorials to the Cambodian Genocide have bome tourist attractions. Not that you get a lot of pleasure actually visiting. Quite the reverse in fact, once you have navigated the various beggers at the gate.

Tuol Sleng (Tuol Svay) was a high school in the capital which the Khmer Rouge converted into a torture centre. In just three years over 17,000 people passed through the prision and passed on to the Killing Fields on the outskirts of the city. Visit the school today and the lawns and pleasant spreading shade trees do not prepare you for inside the building which, incidently, really needs a coat of paint.

Here the classrooms have been turned into torture chambers, with the various devices and methods used still on display. They looked like nimpliments out of the Middle Ages. Up stairs several classroom have been filled with rows of tiny brick cells. Each long enough to lie down in but not wide enough to streach your arms out.

In each classroom the blackboard is usually still atached to the front wall.

S21 was every bit as brutal as any Nazi death camp. Killing was just as systematic with every new arrival photographed for prision records. Many of these photos are now displayed along the walls. Since I arrived in Cambodia on this current visit it was announced that a further 1700 photos had been discovered having been saved from destruction by someone.

I have visited several concentration camps in Europe and found S21 to be every bit as harrowing. Extremely moving.

I think I found S21 to be move emotional than the Killing Fields, despite the bits of human bone and clothing sticking out of the soil and the the thousands of bones and skulls on display in the tall memorial stupa. The remains of around 9000 people have been found here.

So that all relates back to memories from previous visits to Cambodia. But this time I took the opportunity to attend the United Nations sponsored Khmer Rouge War Trials. These long runing trials are being held in a new purpose built court some 16 km from the centre of Phnom Penh.

The Khmer Rouge killings were not just crimes against Cambodia, but as the current Prime Minister points out, 'crimes against humanity'. Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia for three years, eigth months and twenty days during 1975-1979. They called the country Democratic Kampuchea. During that time over three million people were killed. They were the parents, uncles, aunties, brothers and sisters of pople still living today. As I got off the tuktuk on my return to my daughter and son in law's home, my driver told me that his father had been killed by the Khmer Rouge just six months before his birth. He never knew his father. His sister is my daughters home help. In Cambodia, hardly anyone is untouched by Pol Pot and his forces.

Now some of the leaders are finally being bought to trial for the crimes they and their regime committed. War Crimes. The accused are all old men and an old woman. The woman is suffering from dementia and she unless she can be cured enough to stand trial, will escape judgement.

Only one leader has so far been convicted by the courts. That is Kaing Guek Eav aka Duch. He has ultimately received a life sentence with no chance of release. I believe Duch pleaded guilty as he had become a Christian and realised the crimes he had committed. Duch was Chairman of S21 and seen to be the organiser of the systematic and efficient torture and killing in that prison.

His was Case 001

Today I sat in on two sessons of Case 002.

My tuktuk picked me up at 7am as with 16 km to travel on the Airport road it would be possible for hold ups to occur. As it was we were briefly held up by a crashed motor scooter and crowds around it spilling over two highway lanes. Other than that the run out was straight forward and I got to the court at 7:45am. The instructions suggested arriving 45 minutes early for registration and security checks, I was the first to arrive so there was no hold up with security. They had a airport scanner for bags and a scanner archway for me to walk through. As food, drinks, cameras, phones and large bags were not allowed into the court my gear had to be stored by security.

You then go into a large covered outside 'holding pen' area full of tables and plastic chairs. From here you pass through more security into the main building, up stairs and through another scanner before coming into a large theatre like auditorium. This is the public gallery. Perhaps 750 cinema style seats in wide sweeping rows across the space and rising up step by step towards the back. Above the seating in a gallery are a number of glass fronted booths which I took to be the media centre and the translators' booth.

Coming in I collected my head phone and receiver for the English translation. As required the language of the court can be Englsih or French and Khmer.

While I had been waiting in the holding area a large number of local Cambodias had arrived. I was to discover that part of the court's budget is to emable ordinary Cambodians from throughout the country to be able to attend proceedings. The were all neatly dressed as one of the requirments is suitable tidy clothing. On arrival the bus passengers were all given a bread roll – I got one as well, perhaps the attendants were too shy to say they were not for me. It was a bagette with a sweet but salty fish paste filling. Well that's what it seemed like to me. While we were waiting both outside and then inside, up to date back ground videos were screened on flat screen tv sets. I thought this was a good idea as it not only filled the time in but also brought you up to date with the court's progress.

In the public gallery we sat in a semi circular curve facing a wide floor to ceiling window. At a couple minutes before the 9 am start time, the curtains rolled back to reveal all the various court room officials and personalities in position. It was like having the theatre curtains open on the first act of a play with all the actors in various positions and conversations.

A loud bell rang and we all stood as seven judges walked in and took up their positions on a raised platform facing the court and us. It was interesting to find that New Zealander, Dame Silvia Cartwright was one of the judges. She sat beside the President of the Trial, Nonn Nil of Cambodia. He made all the public comments and controlled the court proceedure. Dame Silvia made a couple of brief comments to him during the morning, but none of the other 5 judges seemed make any contribution or comment amongst themselves.

With his back to the window was a wittness.

To the left were the prosucution teams.- perhaps 30 individuals all in layers' gowns.Several represent ed Civil Parties. The prosucution, like the judges, had the Court logo on their gowns. On the right side were the defence teams of an equal number. Two of the accused Khmer Rouge sat in the second row with guards behind them. One was Samphan Khieu, aka Hem and the other was Chea Neon. Both were old men in their 80's. One, Chea, was in a wheel chair. A third defendant, Sary Ieng, aka Van, was watching from his cell by video link due to health issues.

Well I think I have got that correct.

Each of the three had their own defence team and these were the officials making up the first row.

Once the proceedings began, a live video picture appeared on the television screens so that we could clearly see the face of whoever was talking. This was helpful as the witness had his back to us. He was Mr. Suong Si-Koeun who had worked in the Khmer Rouge Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The first defence lawyer, Jasper Pauw, representing Chea Nuon, took a line of questioning which seemed to annoy the court president. So he tended to deny questions as repeditive and outside the scope of the case and so on. If I had been the lawyer I would have been quite angry but the lawyer was very polite and usually thanked the President for his comment. But it did seem to spoil the line he wanted to follow. The President of the Court also disallowed a number of documents because they had not been previously viewed by the witness.

Well the witness would deny seeing them even when they had been part of the documents collected by the defence or prosecuter as part of their case.

The lawyer was trying to establish if the witness had been influenced by a previous witness retracting his statement. But the President kept shutting down that line of questioning.

I felt that he ended his questioning without achieving the gains he had wanted. He also suggested that the President was adopting new rules as the case went along. The other concern for the defence was the way the Prosecution lawyers could and did, stand to challenge a document or lack of translation or page numbers and so on.

After a short break mid morning, the court resumed with a new defence lawyer representing another defandant. This was Michael G Karnavas (USA) who had worked on other War Crimes trials such as in the former Yugoslavia. He has also taught trial law at universities. Clearly he was a capable and experienced person who seemed to take the witness along the direction he wanted with great precision. I do not believe that the President interupted him at all. His questions were all little steps in which he repeated a previous answer and then got the witness to build further on it. Very skillfull I thought.

I thought also that he got answers which the preceeding lawyer had been attempting to obtain without success. The President even had to remind the witness that he didn't need to give such long answers, especially if he wanted to finish his appearance promptly.

At mid day the witness was given the opportunity to continue into the after noon or to rest and return tomorrow morning. He chose to come back tomorrow. Most likely a good idea as he was also an elderly person. He did claim to be the only Pol Pot intellectual who was willing to give evidence but then would not indicate the names of other intellectuals.

He did hwever clearly emphasise that there was no point in requiring the present Minister of Finance and the current Minister of Foreign Affairs to testify as they had been lower than him in the Pol Pot government. He also told the President of the Court not to interupt him while he was speaking. My feeling was that he was being selective in his answers and protective of some individuals.

At one point he mentioned how he had met with another Pol Pot leader to discuss what that person had said in his testomony. The witness claimed that he just wanted to see what he had to prepare to answer during his questioning. It did sound a bit like collusion though. I is also illegal to discuss a case with a witness once they have begun to testify.

However Mr Suong did get a bit confuesed at this stage and kept changing the facts around.

I left after the end of the morning session at noon. It was an experience which I was glad to have had. I was glad that I had made the effort to get out to the Court as it is undoubtly a historical event.

It has taken a long time to get this War Crimes Tribunial under way and there seemsd to be a variety of opinions as to why this should have been so. There also seems to be an opinion that the current cases will be the last to be heard. If the investigations continued then they may well end up reaching into the higher levels of the current government. There is the question as to what some of the current political leaders were doing during the Khmer Rouge period. Would this prove to be an embarishment?

One of the interesting sides to the Court proceedings is the printed resources handed out to public attending. There is an informative 32 page booklet which seeks to answer common questions and list helpful organisations. Then there is a collection of up to date printed sheets which describe the current cases, gives personal background and information regarding the charges made against the defendants. There is a Whose Who in the court with brief biographs of each key person. I found this helpful and interesting to know a bit about each person participating during the day. A copy is given to each member of the public attending.

I would estimate that today there were around 400 public attending. Over 50,000 have attended so far during the Case 002 trial. The Court has a budget amount to cover the costs of busing in Cambodians from around the country to experience the court activities.

I read during the last seven days a local newspaper report that the NZ Government had committed a further $100,000 to the Court's running costs. Perhaps that is to cover Dame Silvia's salary?

From the ECCC Facebook pages:

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) is mandated to put on trial senior leaders and those most responsible for crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979.

The Khmer Rouge tribunal is offically known as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The ECCC is a domestic court supported with international staff, established in accordance with Cambodian law.

Under the terms of Agreement between the United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia, the Extraordinary Chambers will bring to trial senior leaders of the Democratic Kampuchea and those who were most responsible for the crimes and serious violations of Cambodian penal law, international humanitarian law and custom, and international conventions recognized by Cambodia, that were committed during the period from 17 April 1975 to 6 January 1979.

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PHONM PENH REVISITED

I am sitting in a rather up market cafe. The Coffee House is attractively set out with modern comfortable furniture, a mixture of low sofas and cushioned stools around low glass topped wooden cofee tables. Of course there is free wi-fi, as is the case with every coffee cafe I visit which aims at expats. Some of the more local estabishments als ohave the service as well.

At one table a loud voiced expat woman is holding a conversation with someone about running charity type training schools and the problem of actually finding a niche area to train in which wasn't already being over taught by other groups. Seems that there are so many hair dressing and sewing training establishments that getting a job in these areas when training is finished is hard. To me that would indicate a chance of women going backing into the life styles that the training was supposed to take them from. Perhaps micro financing them into their own businesses might help – I think that this could be a really esential extension to the whole training scheme.

It is only 9am and already the presence of an air con is proving helpful. I was awake before 6am thanks to the local dogs and their regular early morning chorus. They have a late night sing a long as well. By 7:30 am the family were out the door and heading back to school for the first day of the new year. The long summer (mid year) break was over and there was a sense of excitiment at going back to catch up with friends and others. The roads were congested with over loaded tuk tuks and motor scooters. There were several traffic police and a military individual controlling the mixing flow from two roads which converge to cross the short narrow bridge leading up onto an even businer main road.

We are dropped off on the opposite side of the four or more lane road which runs beside the high school campus of Hope International School. I say four or more lanes because with the flow of tuk tuks cars trucks hand carts and scooters everyone makes their own line of progress. Some scooters even ride against the flow. Crossing the road looks threatening, but in reality is fairly straight forward. See a space in the coming traffic with less scooters and start walking out slowly but steadily. Everyone just aims to go around you as you walk. Crossing the centre line and a Nope School security guard or traffic warden will rush out into the road to flag down approaching vehicles. And so you cross safely, if not a little amazed.

The students gather in the shade of the raised buildings. It is a Christian school so the principal opens with a short appropriate Bible verse and will end assemble with an equally short relevant prayer. This assemble is devoted to introducing the new staff members and short term volunteers. More staff will arrive over the coming days, having been delayed by various travel or training concerns. In 15 minutes or so, the assemble is over and the new classes are heading off with their teachers. It is only 8:20 am. With an 8am start, the school day will end at 2:30pm. With the way the heat builds up during the day, this early start seems a good idea.

I leave the school and head off down busy side streets for the coffee bar 20 minutes walk away. The residential streets are a mixture of small businesses congested housing and construction in progress. Down an ajoining side street last week I looked in at several local mechanical factories and workshops. There I watched lathes at work, welding, heavy metal work as equipment such as concret mixers were either manufactured or repaired. I saw a factory making large industrial generators down another street. Generally the workshops were not much bigger that two or three New Zealand double garages (car ports). Industrial safety measures didn't seem obvious. Welding without eye or foot protection was a common practice.

I always enjoy walking along the streets here as there is always so much to see. And today I only had to decline three tuktuk offers and one moto ride. Perhaps I don't look so touristy? Ah well, dream on.

While the temperatures are in the thirties, it was still early morning and easier to walk than later in the day would be.

Just a block away from the Coffee House is the Russian Market. This is the one I have visited the most during my times in Phnom Penh. It is not the largest market but still full of many narrow alleyways and passages through the various stalls. Mostly the width is around a metre but it varies a bit depending on how much of the stall's goods spills out from their official space. Imagine a typical stall being around 3-4 metres wide and about the same or perhaps a little less, deep.

Stals seemed to be grouped into areas selling the same type of product. There is a small group of stationery and book sellers. Some of these have so much stock crammed in that the seller sits out in front and clambers onto her displays to reach items at the back. One woman did this to get my a copy of the Malaysa Lonely Planet. It was just $5 and a fake. The cover looked correct but the small print had the correct edition but then said published June 2011. Now I knew that the current edition was 2010 with the next due out in 2013. I checked careflly inside and finally found evidence that the copied pages came from a 2005 edition. It pays to check.

In one corner there are a number of DVD and CD stalls. One inside corner stall is double size. Most every film you can think of is likely to be there. But not The Story of Film – An Odessy which was shown on UK tv. Every stall has the complete films of Bergman – and they have each year I have visited. The packing changes so they must sell. I bought Brave to show to my grandchildren only to get home and find it had most likely been filmed off a cinema screen. And they had copied the 3D version so that it was fuzzy really not worth watching. It would pay to check. I suspect that this is the way the very latest films are obtained. Only $US1.50 a disc.

In the middle of the market are food stalls, both vegetables and meats, but also prepared meals. I called in with my family members for lunch at the noodle and spring roll stall. Here for under $US1 each we enjoyed fresh cooked noodles in a very tasty light sauce with chopped up sections of deep fried and crisp spring rolls. Crushed roasted peanuts were sprinkled on top. Across the alley was a cold drink stall. A good combination.

What amused me, as the family sat at the long ledge at the stall eating their noodles, were the European tourists pausing to take a photo of us all eating.

An early morning visit around the food stalls and you will find fresh fish swimming in bowls with others chopped up int round slices. No nicely filleted slices here. I wached various 'butcher' chopping up chicken and beef and letting it lie on the counter or hang. Some had flies around it other pieced did n't. I am told that if buying meat sellect the slices which attract flies. It seems meet without flies has most likely had some insecticide sprayed over it. But no one know exactly which chemical is used. Perhaps frozen supermarket meat is the safest choice.