The last winter day

6.10.2010 | Day 67 | 29 114 km | Auckland, New Zealand

After our road trip, we had about one and a half day to look what kind of city Auckland is. The first day after our flights from south was just walking a little and I looked the sights from the Sky Tower, which is - if I remember right - the tallest building on southern hemisphere.

Next day however, was all about improvising and it turned out to be just the right choice at this point of the journey. First, I found a scooter rental place and rented one small Suzuki for a day. I guess the road trip wasn’t still enough! Since the weather was sunny and it was really warm in the sun, I decided I’ll drive all the way to west coast and to Waitakere national park. After some once again great scenery along the way I drove my scooter to the final stop, where all the trekking tracks begun. I walked in the forests for more than two hours and found the highlight point of these tracks - Kitekite Falls. I thought I’d miss all the trekking in this country where it’s a must thing to do, but at the last moment I did it and really enjoyed the peaceful environment those tracks offered.

After the treks, I fired up my scooter and took a scenic road back to Auckland, drove here and there and just generally looked what kind of a city Auckland is outside downtown. As Mount Eden was conveniently nearby, I drove the roads up there, looked the city in the horizon and the 360 degree views to the crater the mountain had. Then it was time to drive back to our hostel and enjoy a little nap.

As the sun set, I started my scooter once again and drove to the harbor to see how Auckland Harbor Bridge and the city skyline looked at night. When I just enjoyed the skyline views from the harbor, a harbor security man in his sixties joined me and we talked a long while about New Zealand and Finland, the similarities these countries have and how weird is it that the sun goes from east to west from the other side down under. At some point he wished a good rest of our trip and left to do his work, I watched the views for a little while longer and when it got a bit too cold, I drove back to hostel to read a book and get some sleep.

Auckland skyline on a peaceful evening...

It was a perfect and relaxing day in Auckland and it’s surroundings. Now, back to airport it’s time to catch a flight to Fiji and leave the cold weather behind us.

New Zealand road diaries

4.10.2010 | Day 65 | 31 969 km | Auckland, New Zealand


Day 1: Auckland - Hamilton - New Plymouth
Road km’s: 0 - 427 km

Finally! Probably the most anticipated part of our journey for me, a proper road trip in New Zealand. After a sleepless night in Melbourne airport and after a sleepless flight to Auckland it might have not been the best idea to jump behind the wheel, but the arrangements were already done, so there was no getting out of this now. We picked our car keys from the airport and were greeted by a really fine lady dressed in black and wore nice 18-inch hi-heels, and the suspension felt pretty good too! In other words, we found that our car was a special version of Ford Falcon V6, which was a nice surprise.

After concentrating again to use the left lanes instead of right, we started driving south towards Hamilton. Since last three cities we have been in have had a F1 track and New Zealand doesn’t have one, we still wanted to keep the motorsport theme going, hit the right turn signal on and steered off the highway about 50 km after Auckland. This time, it was time to check out what Rally New Zealand looks like. We made our way to the special stage Franklin, used in this year’s event and found out that the roads are pretty much the same than in Rally Finland but just a little bit slower... And with a spectacular scenery! Even though our lady was not prepared for this kind of gravel action in those high heels, it was a thrill to drive those roads.

Rally New Zealand SS11 Franklin

At some point we found the main highway again and cruised to Hamilton to eat and find sleeping bags for the next night. We decided to head west to New Plymouth, from where it would be an easy drive in the morning to Wellington, most southern city in the northern island. At some point the sun set, Aleksi fell asleep and I was having a real tough time to keep concentrated after a sleepless night. But well before New Plymouth, the road started to cross a mountain and became really twisty. And here it happened; The driver and the car became one as I drove through the hairpins, ups and downs and tight chicanes. Our lady behaved like a dream through every corner and I was able to stay awake easily. Finally reaching the lights of New Plymouth, I stopped the car to a rest area and thought that I haven’t had this much fun driving a car in a long, long time…

Day 2: New Plymouth - Wellington - SOUTH ISLAND - Christchurch
Road km’s: 427 - 1293 km

A rooster. Again and again and again. That was what I heard 5 am, waking up in a really chilly car after another night I should have slept better. No farms nearby, just a rooster in the middle of the woods waking us up. After 6 am I decided that it’s enough, got out of the sleeping bag and behind the wheel again. It was time to catch our ferry to South Island from Wellington. We stuck strictly to the main roads to avoid any delays and the drive was pretty smooth, but tiring. In Wellington we were greeted by Mother Earth by heavy rain, but we managed to find the ferry terminal and said goodbye to our great lady Falcon, as in NZ you can’t drive a rental car across the islands.

I had a brilliant plan of sleeping through the three hour ferry ride, but my plans weren’t exactly the same as the ferry staff thought. As soon as the ferry left the terminal, they started playing movies with pretty much max volume, making sleeping impossible. So, instead of watching sweet dreams, I saw a Sandra Bullock movie. Oh well…

Arriving to Picton in the South Island, we got a shuttle to rental companies to pick up our next car. A slight disappointment, since this time we saw a girl pretty much dressed in a basic grey sweatpants and flat shoes; Our car turned from a special edition to the cheapest Falcon there is for sale. Still, a V6 engine made at least me happy.

Amazing scenery from a car or from a train

Another 400 km to go before a hostel this time in Christchurch. At first it was excellent fun to drive along the east coast roads with the Pacific Ocean and snow-topped mountains in the same view, with great slow turns hugging the coastline. But, now with one night totally without sleep and another in a cold car with rooster sounds included, after the sun set again it became really tough to drive. Lights of the oncoming traffic blinding me and constant 100 km/h was not good for general awareness, but I decided that if I really felt that I couldn’t drive properly, I would just stop. In the end it was not far away, but we finally arrived at 10 pm to Christchurch and found our place to stay. A quick shower and straight to sleep, that was not a hard task to do!

Day 3: Christchurch - Arthur’s Pass - Greymouth - Hokitika
Road km’s: 1293 - 1600 km

Alarm clock woke us up 11 hours later and finally we had the sleep we were looking for. This day would be so much easier. We also had no hurry, since we “only” had to cross the Southern Alps to the west coast and reach a city called Greymouth. But first, it was time to look what Christchurch looked like since the big earthquakes hit it just few weeks ago. I was surprised to find out that business was mostly as usual with no sign of the catastrophe happened earlier. But, as we drove around the city we found out that whole blocks had been closed from the traffic and demolition workers were tearing up the ruins of some buildings here and there. They have a long way to go before everything is like it was earlier…

We also drove the local Mulholland Drive, which had really narrow mountain roads with no railings separating our car and the huge drop down. That’s something what keeps your speed to minimum! If you ask me, this road beats the original Mulholland Drive with a long margin.

After a breakfast in town it was time to check out what Arthur’s Pass looked like. Only under 300 km drive, but crossing the Alps is not something you can do every day. Just as we started climbing uphill for the first time, it started raining. The weather looked really nice when we started from Christchurch, but obviously mountain weather is a completely different thing. It was not normal rain, but like if a kid was playing with shower controls; Sometimes it rained a lot, sometimes none and all the differences between. But who’d think about the rain, when you have such views in front of you. This is the motherland for road trips, these views will take your breath away.

Driving up to Arthur's Pass

Hi there!

While descending on the other side, we stopped to a scenic outlook to take photos of the road and scenery, when we saw three parrots just waiting in the parking lot. When we stopped our car, one of the parrots jumped to the roof and started eating window seals and looked inside like saying “wazaaaaa!” at the same time. Strange I thought, but later on I found out that these are Kea’s and it’s strictly forbidden to feed them, as they come more and more dependant of these tourist snacks. We’re glad we didn’t and I guess the window seals were not exactly what the bird was looking for.

We arrived Greymouth earlier than we thought, so we hit a local bar and played few rounds of pool and had half pint of beers. I was curious if it were legal to drink one beer and drive afterwards, so I asked the people in the bar: “Can I drive after drinking beer”? My wording was not quite what I tried to ask, so a helpful middle-aged guy answered: “Well, it all depends how much you have eaten. I’d say after three or four beers you’re still ok”. Eh… I got the feeling drunk driving is not that uncommon in the small cities of New Zealand.

We ended our day continuing just a little forward to Hokitika and found another place to park our car middle of nowhere and get in to our sleeping bags. At this point it felt like a moderately good idea.

Day 4: Hokitika - Franz Josef - Queenstown
Road km’s: 1600 - 2085 km

No roosters making sounds in the morning. That was a good thing. Unfortunately, that was the only good thing happening around that time. Temperature had decreased to freakin’ freezing number, only 4 degrees outside! And that was pretty much what it was inside the car as well and that was the point I realized that sleeping in a car during New Zealand springtime is doomed to fail.

Franz Josef Glacier

After a half hour of trying to get the moisture off the car windows inside, we started driving towards to Queenstown. Pretty soon we crossed a place called Franz Josef and just afterwards there was a sign of “Franz Josef Glacier”, so we decided to take a peek what’s there to see. We ended up doing an one hour walking trip to see a glacier, a frozen stream coming down from a snowy mountain. It was amazing sight to see, but also so freakishly cold… Until the sun started warming us up behind the mountains. Sun is not the same what it is during winters in Finland, here, you can actually end up being hot and cold at the same time. Being in the sun makes you almost sweat and going to the shadows makes you freeze totally. It’s a real weird feeling, as in our home the sun just isn’t that hot under same circumstances.

The rest of the trip was crossing the Alps once again. Well, again is not exactly the right word since at least I probably wouldn’t never get tired to see these sights and drive these twisty roads, there’s not anything that could make road tripping here dull, not even a really bad night of sleep or rainy days. After a thousand turns and a thousand sheep beside the roads we ended our day to Queenstown into a hostel and had a relaxing evening. After the first tough days of the trip, we’ve had some excellent itineraries and not drive too much in one day.

A turn after a turn... And lovin' every one of them

Day 5: Queenstown - Manapouri - Te Anau
Road km’s: 2085 - 2356 km

Really, really cold at the top of The Remarkables

This day was the shortest of the whole trip looking at kilometers to drive, so we thought in the morning why keep it that way? First stop we decided to do was to drive to a ski center up the mountains called The Remarkables. The name itself was enough to get me up there, but the drive was worth anyways. It was different this time though, since paved roads ended exactly when we turned off from the highway. The climb was only 10 km in length, but we ascended from 300 meters to 1 600 meters during the drive. At some point it started to look like a dumb plan with summer tires and a rear-wheel drive, while all other cars going up or down were AWD’s. Not to mention once again missing railings to keep us from tumbling 1 km downhill… But, the roads were in good enough condition and we made it all the way up to find out that it was the coldest place yet, a whopping zero degrees Celsius.

We made another stop that made our journey to Te Anau longer as we drove to Lake Manapouri to take some photos. At this point I have to mention how amazed we have been of the waters in New Zealand. It’s so clear absolutely everywhere that you feel that it’s almost drinkable. It’s truly fantastic to see all the river streams or lakes as you can see the bottom through the waters easily. This, I have never seen anywhere…

Te Anau itself doesn’t offer much, so we checked in to our hostel and again relaxed the evening and set our sights to the spectacle of this journey: Milford Sound.

Day 6: Te Anau - Milford Sound - Bluff - Invercargill
Road km’s: 2356 - 2855 km

We checked out from our hostel 8.30 am and set our sights for Milford Sound. All guides said the drive would be 2,5 hours, but thanks to my happy gas pedal feet, we actually did the trip in 1,5 hours… Road to the spectacular Milford was very cool to drive and offered some great photo stops along the way, but the jackpot was in the end of the road; We decided to take a 2,5 hour cruise through the fiord all the way to Tasman Sea and back. All I can say is that nature has some very, very nice things to offer when you decide to explore them! And at last we got real lucky with the weather, as it rains 200/365 days in Milford and today it was totally cloudless and beautiful day. We really enjoyed our cruise, as it brought some difference to the road trip and offered those beautiful mountains, waterfalls and couple of seals were also kind enough to pose for us.

After the cruise was over, it was time for our last journey, all the way south that is possible on the mainland. For a change, the landscape turned totally flat and we drove through a thousand lamb farms and finally reached the most south town, Bluff. I have never been this far away from home, it was exactly 17 103 kilometers from my home in Jyvaskyla, Finland. After trying to put these numbers into perspective, we drove a bit back to Invercargill, found a nice enough place to stay for a night and parked our car. The next day was only about driving 10 km’s to the local airport and catch a flight to Auckland via Christchurch.

This six day road trip was all that I hoped for. I set the bar high for New Zealand before the trip, but everything was even better. Pretty much every day was amazing with the landscape changing and being beautiful all the time. We had some trouble with coldness, but really… Who remembers it now? We don’t, since the drive was totally worth it. I guess the photos tell the story what kind of a traveller’s land New Zealand is. And here's few from the Milford Sound and it's surroundings, no captions necessary.

Not an obvious tourist anymore

28.9.2010 | Day 59 | 26 474 km | Melbourne, Australia

It’s almost 2am at Melbourne Tullamarine Airport and it seems more and more a bad idea to start our second road trip in just 8 hours from Auckland, New Zealand. Flight departs at 6am and the quality of sleep at  this airport we’ve “had” is terrible. But that’s future, so let’s rewind three days back, all the way to Adelaide.

Adelaide ex-F1 circuit, a must-see for a motorsport fan

The change from +30 degrees Southeast Asia to +15 degrees Australia was surprisingly a very pleasant one. Just by walking out of the airplane made you feel and breath the amazingly fresh and cool air, just the way we had it in Finland! Finally no excessive sweating around the clock and walking around Adelaide was easy. But, it also meant a trip to a clothing store to get a hoodie, a t-shirt with a jacket wasn’t enough to keep you warm. We only had one day in Adelaide, but we didn’t really need more; The city is relatively small and compact and you can walk through it several times during a day. Of course, there would always be things to do and discover for more than a day, but this trip isn’t about getting into the details anyway. Still, Adelaide was a fun city and a very nice change, since there was nothing “must” to see, so we could just wander around freely without having to think about how we can see it all. As a big motorsport fan, walking through the ex-F1 street circuit, now hosting a V8 Supercars event, was a fun experience for me.

After a long and nice night at a small hostel, we finally got to the main thing; A road trip to Melbourne through The Great Ocean Road. Getting into the car for the first time was a funny and a scary event, as it was the first time driving the car from the right side. Using the mirrors properly seemed impossible and trying to figure out where your left front corner was extremely hard. But, with good concentration it started to go smoothly with only once taking the wrong lane, although there were A LOT funny moments with the reversed turn signal and windshield wiper controls in the wheel…

First day of driving was only getting to the coastal road, but offered some great scenery south to Adelaide. It became clear that driving in Australia is real fun and pretty easy, as there were virtually no traffic on the small roads we drove. We ended our day after 13 hours of driving to Warrnambool, saving some money and sleeping in the car in the middle of nowhere parked to a grass area beside a public toilet. It would have been a good night’s sleep, if it wouldn’t have been so damn cold! On the next day, we finally reached The Great Ocean Road and it’s not advertised for nothing; It’s simply an amazing drive. It gave us the same thrills that Highway 1 gave us three years earlier in California, driving the coastline up to San Francisco. But at this road there was a lot more to see and we stopped almost always when there was a scenic view park available. I can only advise that if you’re going to visit Australia, do yourself a favor and rent a car and go to see this coastal road, you won’t be disappointed!

Watching the views at the shores of Great Australian Bight

The Great Ocean Road, not the worst road I have driven...

Free city tram, a great way to
take a tour around Melbourne

After the road trip, we ended up to Melbourne, returned our car and searched for a decent and a cheap place to stay. We had two days to explore this city and kinda like Adelaide, Melbourne doesn’t really have those “must” things to see. We ended up touring two days separately, going for the places we both wanted to go without any compromises. Here it struck me what had changed; We were being treated as normal human beings and not someone who needs a massage, a tuk-tuk ride, copywatches or t-shirts every 50 meters. We no longer stood out from the crowds and there were no eager salesmen trying to get our money all times, and that felt good! Strangely enough, going back to Singapore, this was the third city in a row where I walked through a Formula 1 track. Again, walking the streets of Albert Park Circuit was a great experience and a strange one too, seeing the track in it’s normal everyday use.

Melbourne skyline from the Shrine of Rememberance

But, now it’s time to leave Australia behind and finally head to New Zealand, easily in the top 3 places I wanted to go on this trip. Next six days we’ll be doing another road trip, from Auckland to all the way to south, ending our trip in Invercargill. We’ll see what happens along the way…

Life on the fast lane

22.9.2010 | Day 53 | 19 784 km | Singapore, Singapore

After spending almost a month in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos - where things happen like being stuck on the first gear - we really changed gears, all the way to sixth! In just 8 days we have already seen three different countries and have toured the cities every day until the sunset and then some. So, as I didn’t have to write with the all sightseeing, this blog entry is a long one.

The world's biggest reclining
Buddha statue in the world...

We boarded an overnight train from Thanaleng, Laos to Bangkok, Thailand, which felt like winning a lottery after all the buses and minivans we used the month before. But sadly, we were a little behind the schedule coming to Bangkok and only had a day to spend there before a flight to Singapore. Thailand wasn’t really in our interests compared to three countries before it, but obviously it would have been fun to see the city at least one more day. We saw the biggest Buddhist temple in Asia (or at least I think it was) and did some other quick sightseeing, before it started raining heavily and the rest of the day was just resting and preparing ourselves to the next two countries.

The journey continued with a flight to Singapore and from there, a bus to Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur. This time, the 5 hour bus journey was a bit different. It was a first class 16-seater luxury bus, which was really something! Every passenger had a massaging recliner with a personal TV and a gaming console. So there we were, taking back massages, playing games, watching movies and even meals were served during this trip. The feeling when arriving to Kuala Lumpur was… “Already in KL?”. I can’t really think any better way to travel than that! And the best of all was, it’s completely affordable.

In a luxurious Transtar Travel first-class bus, feeling pretty comfortable

In Kuala Lumpur, we continued our luxury part of the journey by checking in to a 5-star hotel on the last day of our stay there (two previous nights were in a hostel). It’s hasn’t really been a common thing during this trip to have a spacious room with a balcony, a bathtub and amazingly comfortable beds. But for one night we had that luxury and in the morning we headed to the swimming pool and relaxed in a Jacuzzi, while watching Petronas Twin Towers on the horizon.

I am so short compared to the
Petronas Twin Towers

But rewinding just a little, Kuala Lumpur was a very nice city to explore. After seeing hundreds of Buddhist temples in the countries before, it was a joy to change religion and go see some mosques in KL. These were different than normal mosques though, as they were really big and designed differently. We also visited the famous Petronas Twin Towers, once the tallest building on earth. The visit to the skybridge was free, but included a stop to a movie theatre to see how amazingly excellent oil and oil related products are. Man, that was some brainwashing lesson… Although, still it’s better to have Malaysian company drilling in their waters than example Shell or BP.

It was time however to leave Kuala Lumpur behind and return back to Singapore, again in the Transtar Travel luxury bus. Another joyful journey watching Megan Fo… I mean Transformers II from the TV and playing some Super Mario :) It was a total coincidence that our time in Singapore was during the same week when the Formula 1 circus came to town, so you could really feel the glamour arriving to the city. But that was just the top of the iceberg. Singapore has to offer pretty much everything you can imagine. Luxurious cars driving everywhere (but I call them junk, because I didn’t see a single Ford Mustang), skyscrapers at the Marina Bay, of course Chinatown and what was our absolute favorite during our stay, Underwaterworld and Singapore Zoo.

Especially the zoo was amazing, during the first day we did a night safari on a tram, which takes you through the park and sometimes you were only a few steps away from the animals. There even was an area where you walked in through doors and were surrounded by fruit bats flying around freely, more than couple of times missing your head by inches. The next day we returned to the zoo and walked about 4 hours through the park watching tigers, leopards giraffes and all kinds of animals. Last time I visited a zoo was a long time ago in Finland, and animals there were pretty much just put on a concrete prison, but Singapore Zoo had done things with class. Even though the animals live in captivity, there were no crappy concrete prisons, but everything was done to resemble their real habitat. If you ever travel to Singapore, be sure not to miss the zoo!

A tunnel in the Underwaterworld, where sharks, rays and all kinds of fish swim left, right and above you

White tigers relax after being fed at the Singapore Zoo

Eventually, all good things come to an end and this is where Asia and us part our ways. It was a helluva journey through Southeast Asia and something we never will forget (until Alzheimer). Now, it’s time to change the way of travel and start road trippin’ through Australia and New Zealand. From now on, we decide our schedules but I also need to learn how to drive a car from the passenger’s seat.

Dealer gave us nothin'

14.9.2010 | Day 45 | 16 939 km | Vientiane, Laos

Poker is sometimes a frustrating game to play. You have fixed your poker face on - Thousand times better than Lady Gaga - and you think you’re cruising to the top prizes, until the dealer starts giving you crap and everything goes down the drain. Well, this is just what happened to us in Laos.

Hole cards: Queen of Hearts and Ace of Spades. Wow, a great start! We landed to Luang Prabang airport on a sunny afternoon, passed through the most friendliest customs process by far and got a cheap taxi to take us to the city. As it turned out, Lao people were celebrating the end of the rain season with boat racing and just basically getting drunk. We had a lot of luck coming to Laos on this specific day and it was a blast to watch these people enjoying themselves in a big way. Later on in the evening we did our own touring, but both climbed to the highest point of the city, which opened amazing views to the city.

A boat race, Lao style

The Flop: Two of Clubs, Six of Spades and Five of Diamonds. This is where it all crashed down massively. Totally useless set of cards. We woke up on the second day, having to run to the toilet with our stomachs completely upside down. A food poisoning for both of us, great! We dodged the bullet on our journey for about 40 days, but our luck was all used out. In the morning I couldn’t even stand on my feet for more than three seconds until I felt like passing out, so it was time to start eating antibiotics I picked up from a doctor before our trip. We lost two days completely as we just had to lay down and watch the ceiling fan go round and round, we had to cancel all activities we arranged in Luang Prabang and almost had a nervous breakdown just not doing anything.

Turn card: Nine of Clubs. A hand full of nothing to use in this game and Laos was going for the win. We left Luang Prabang in a minivan, a 5 hour, 220 km trip going south to Vang Vieng. But, it was far away for being a simple five hour trip. Our van driver stopped two times for a 45 minute break and once for a 10 minute break to buy groceries from a street market - while 10 passengers waited for him in the van. Lao time, it’s a completely different concept. Things happen, but not in the time frame you’d think or want. So, more than 7 hours later we arrived to Vang Vieng, but as the darkness was closing in quickly, there was not much to do except wait for next morning.

We were glad to get out of Vang Vieng the next morning though. It’s a small town in the middle of the jungle, shaped to be what it is because of ignorant tourism. Every second restaurant had Brits eating pizzas while watching an endless loop of Friends from TV sets. I mean seriously! You travel all the way to Laos, to eat Italian food and to watch US sitcoms? The exact things you’d be doing at home. I once saw a tourist village just the same in Kos, Greece but I never thought seeing one in Laos. For me, that is the most frustrating thing you can see while you’d want to see real cultures and cities.

River card: Ten of Hearts. Bus trip from Vang Vieng to our final stop in Laos, Vientiane was actually pretty much on time and we found a nice guesthouse to stay for two nights before our train to Bangkok. But, as the cards were already dealt and we were looking the dealer with fury, it just rained for the whole time in Vientiane. Not much to do except to play pool and as our surprise, do some bowling! Oh Laos, you promised a lot but things just didn’t go as planned, no sir. But one day I’ll return and demand a rematch since you can tell that without any hurry and no food poisonings, you have amazing things to offer.

Some day, Laos, some day…

The dangers of Cambodia

8.9.2010 | Day 39 | 15 810 km | Siem Reap, Cambodia

Yep, the dangers. That’s what I thought, until the first day walking down the streets of Phnom Penh. Take out the word danger and change it to fascinating, you’ll get a much more accurate description of Cambodia. Even in Phnom Penh, the capital and the biggest city, you can walk freely even at nights without fearing that somebody would put a gun on your face. So for all interested of discovering another interesting Southeast Asian country, welcome to Cambodia!

Our first “sightseeing” tour in Phnom Penh was to see the brutal history this country had to go through in the 70’s. A tuk-tuk driver took us to Choeung Ek, also known as the Killing Fields. We had seen parts of this area from the Finnish TV-show Madventures, but being there yourself is a totally different experience, a heart-stopping one. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killed over 20% of the population of Cambodia while trying to send the nation back to the stone age. Choeung Ek was one of the sites they brought people blindfolded in trucks to be killed and buried to mass graves. Men, women and children - nobody was spared. All this happened just a couple of years before we were born, making it even more difficult to understand how the hell is something like this possible. After Killing Fields, we also visited the Genocide Museum downtown, a school that the Khmer Rouge turned into a torture prison. One prison rule tells us the cruel story: “While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all”. Only about 30 years later, this country still has deep wounds to heal.

A memorial stupa at Choeung Ek, containing over 5 000 skulls found from the mass graves 

But, the country has progressed huge leaps and while some other country might still be in a total chaos, Cambodia is definitely on the right track. Still a long, long way to go and lots of corruption and poverty to be dealed with, Once again I’m happy that I could visit this country and help the locals just a little by eating in their small restaurants and using the services of the tuk-tuk drivers.

The steepest ladders ever

After three days in Phnom Penh, it was time to hop into another bus for a six-hour drive to Siem Reap. The small city doesn’t have much to offer itself, but just few kilometers north, Angkor Wat blows your mind. Once again, we damned our schedule as we only had one full day to explore the massive temples Khmer Empire started to built in 12th century. And it’s not only possible to look at them, you can actually wander around pretty much everywhere - Even climb up the steepest and the most dangerous ladders to reach the highest temple rooms. I don’t know if it’s really wise to keep it that way, as some of the structures are in pretty bad shape and about to collapse, but at least for the visitors of today it’s amazing, as you can roam the temples just like the people built them did. Being one of the man-made wonders of the world, Angkor Wat and it’s surroundings is another place you just can’t explain, you need to visit it. So write it down to your “to do” -list and on your next vacation, visit Cambodia :)

Nature has taken over after the temples of Angkor Wat were abandoned

Strange things happened in Cambodia:

• You never really look the ingredients of a shampoo bottle, but from now on we will. We bought “For man” shampoo to use also as a shower gel as we don’t want to carry several bottles. But seriously, this shampoo had citric acid in it! I could only think one particular Jerry Lee Lewis song while trying to take a shower. Jeez…
• We visited The Russian Market in Phnom Penh, a block of small booths and sellers with not-so-genuine clothing and other items. It’s covered with a really badly built roof and just as we got in, it started to rain heavily. And by heavily, I mean multiple a heavy rain you know a couple of times and that’s what happened. Of course, some of the piping gave up and turned the market into Venice. So, shoes off, start walking your feet in the water and continue shopping…
• And by the way, when it’s raining it’s a good idea to go playing some snooker. But, snooker clubs doesn’t work exactly just like in Finland. No, you’ll get a $4/hour table with a girl in hi-heels counting the points and picking the balls up… Snooker balls! After you get used to the idea that you can‘t just play alone in peace, it’s pretty fun.
• There is something going on with selling the names of passengers to arrival station tuk-tuk drivers. But they don't really do it particularly well... So, as we travelled to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh, there was a tuk-tuk man with a sign "HANNW TOUUM" waiting for us. Needless to say, we skipped that!

Good night, Vietnam

2.9.2010 | Day 33 | 15 247 km | Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

It has been more than two weeks since we landed to Vietnam. Without a date-to-date plan, we have spent much more time here than we thought - there is just that much to discover. But, as our maximum days of staying without a Visa is ending, we’re about to head to Cambodia tomorrow.

In a sleeper bus, comfort level near zero

After we left Sapa a week ago, the journey all the way down south to Saigon has been joyful, but also somewhat exhausting. We chose to take an open tour bus through the country, which was a mistake. First segment from Sapa to Hoi An via Hanoi took us two days to do and was really horrible. As we got into our sleeper bus in Hanoi, it took two full and painful hours to even get out of the city limits. At one point, the driver tried to back into a gas station for 20 minutes, hitting a couple of trees in the process. After we finally got out of the city, I almost fell out of my “bed” more than a few times as the bus bounced up and down, left and right on the roads. The second segment from Hoi An to Saigon was more comfortable, but also lasted for more than 25 hours - and was just under 1 000 km. If we would have booked a train, we would have been in Saigon possibly at least a day earlier.

But enough of that type of transportation. Hoi An is a small city located in the middle of the country, and is known of the great beach and it has a specialty; Tailor made clothing. We both made suits in a tailor shop and sent them by mail to Finland. It felt actually really nice to buy a nice suit from Vietnam, instead of buying it through a chain store in Finland as the suit would still have been made in an Asian country. Now, we had the opportunity to gave the money to those who really did the work!

A victorious tank in front of the Reunification Palace

After a couple days of mostly relaxing and swimming in the ocean, we continued on to Saigon. We only had one full day in this hectic city, but still managed to visit the Reunification Palace and War Museum. Sorry to all my friends in US, but I’m damn glad Vietnam fought for their freedom and won the war; The horrors they had to face with massive bombings and millions of civilian casualties, combined with defects, disabilities and deaths caused by Agent Orange just because they believe in different type of government is… Well, something that I just can‘t understand.

Even Finland was represented in the War Museum with a
photograph of a rally against the war in 1970

We didn’t have enough time to go through the all stories behind stunning and very graphic photographs and other items as the museum closed down, which was a real shame. But still, even a day spent in Saigon told us the tough story of this nation.

Vietnam is an amazing country and I can surely recommend it to anyone interested of discovering different cultures. The landscape changes throughout the country and has all you can wish for, the people are really friendly and as the country is still developing, it’s an affordable country to spend your vacation. Western world could (and should) take some lessons from the Vietnamese how to be happy without a massive arsenal of technology and other unnecessary items covering our cities and homes. Their obesity rating has to be somewhere around 0-1% and the people here seem to be very healthy. They work long hours and long weeks, but still they won’t burn out like people in Finland; In the middle of the day at work, they just take a long break and gather around the streets to cook and eat noodles and other healthy foods while chatting with relatives and friends. That’s something what’s missing from the Western cultures, and I envy these people for it.

Travel tips for Vietnam:

• Vietnam is a safe country to travel, if you keep the common sense with you. Even the big cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are safe to walk around and to enjoy.
• Restaurant food in Vietnam is absolutely great. There are no McDonald’s anywhere in the country, which is only a good thing. Restaurants are affordable and the most of them have a menu with enough dishes to make it even hard to choose from all of them.
• Watch out for fixed taxi meters. Especially in Hanoi, there are a lot of taxis where the meter runs up like crazy - 1 km can roll up in a distance of 100 meters. Always ask for the driver to put the meter on when he starts driving and if you suddenly see the meter run up, shout stop and get out. Don’t argue, just pay what the meter says but if you continue the trip, you’ll might end up paying a lot!
• Be really cautious when buying a tour lasting several days. Unless you know from someone for sure, it can be very disappointing if the “traveling agency” has promised more than they can provide. Stay away anything that is called “Sinh Café”. My personal tip, just book transportation and not a whole package. You’re better of looking a hotel when you arrive by just walking down the streets (or make a reservation through an Internet site, Hostelbookers.com or Hotels.com or sites like that).
• If you have a lot of time and want to see different cities, take an open tour bus ticket. It’s a one ticket through the country, you deciding where you take off and when to go by just confirming it a day earlier. BUT, if you don’t have the extra time in your hands, use train or planes.
• Smile and be friendly out there. Not everything always goes as you have planned, but it’s not really serious. Don’t get mad at people, since it won’t do any good. Eventually you’ll get there :)