Hitting up Vietnam

The last time we updated the blog, we had spent 2 days in Phnom Penh but the fun stories started after that.

On our third day in the city, Halvor decided to bring out his clean side and opted for using a cotton swab as the appropriate tool to clean his ear. BAD IDEA!!! See, the thing is that Haakon had brought these really crappy, no-name cotton swabs from Canada, which he gave to Halvor. He he.. Thirty minutes later, he comes out laughing. Apparently he had pushed the q-tip so far into his tiny ear that the cotton part fell off the "body" of the q-tip and lodged itself inside the ear canal. In other words, Halvor was now stuck in Phnom Penh with half a q-tip inside his ear. Kinda funny. Seeing that it was no real emergency, we waited until late afternoon next day, where the funny story ends. Getting the q-tip out of the ear proved to be of little amusement to Haakon and Mahta, as all that was required was an ear flush.. bummer, no surgery?

The two remaining days we had in Phnom Penh, we spent visiting various sites around the city. We went to one former school which was used as a prison under the Khmer Rouge regime. For more than 3 years, 100 people were tortured and beaten to death every day!!! The fact that this was only 30 years ago, makes it even more extreme. All in all, the Khmer Rouge Regime (or Pol Pot regime) killed between 1.7 and 3 million people in a matter of 4 years. Their preferred method of killing was through the bamboo stick lashes, and any intellectual or prominent person was at a higher risk of being captured and tortured. The goal of the regime was to make a pure agricultural society.. WOW!

We left Cambodia and Phnom Penh after 5 relaxing days. We opted for the slower, but more scenic route down the Mekong Delta to Vietnam, which ended up being really nice. For 5 hours, we cruised down the Mekong river and other smaller canals to a place called Chau Doc. The river looks exactly the way Hollywood projects it, and half the time Haakon was getting Apocalypse Now flashbacks he he

Chau Doc is a small city along the Mekong river, and apparently, 3 white people with big backpacks is not an everyday sight. Kids yelling "Hello" after us and people had to take double looks all the time. Kinda cool to be an alien for a while. We spent one full day in Chau Doc cruising around the country side and up a mountain with our super cool mopeds. (Halvor ended up with one that had a bum horn, he he..)

Seeing that boats were slow and expensive, our next journey was undertaken by the means of an old fashioned bus. When we started the 4 hour ride, we each had 2 seats and were cruising along nicely. Within 1.5 hours, our space had been reduced to barely one seat each. Not fun. The only cool thing was that our bus was filled with cigarette smugglers, the youngest one being 12 years old, and the oldest one being 70-80 years old. They all had about 1000 packs (YES, 1000 PACKS!!!!!) attached to their bodies and then hidden under HUGE clothes. They looked ridicilous, and I think you could spot them a mile away. Have no clue how they did it..

Our bus dropped us off in Can Tho, which is the biggest city in the Mekong Delta. The city wasn't that exciting, but we spent the next morning cruising down the Mekong river to a massive floating market. Really nice. We then left the main river and went down through smaller canals and even stopped at some fruit gardens. We can now all proudly say that we have tried Snake Wine and been offered to pick our own chicken for lunch..

We took a small bus from Can Tho to Saigon (Ho Chin Minh City), where we have spent the last two days. Not much to report, besides Haakon's tape worm scare...

(insert by Halvor and Mahta here)
Conversation went something like this:
Haakon (in the bathroom, immediately after pooeing) - Uuuuh, guys.. I think we have a problem... Can you come in here
Mahta - What? Why? I don't want to come in there (reluctantly walks into the bathroom)
H&M - Halvor!!! Get in here! This is serious!!!
Halvor - Uh what... I really really don't want to (even more reluctantly goes into the bathroom)
Haakon - Check it out, I don't know if I shat him (2cm long centipede) out or if it was in there before
Centipede (in toilet struggling to get out) - Hey guys, give me a hand, I'm all feet. This toilet bowl is friggin slippery, I can't get out. Hey, what's that's flash? Here, let me pose for you. Take it away... No, wait! don't flush! Nooooooo....
(insert ends, back to Haakon's story)
so we took the pictures to a nice doctor who told us that it was nothing but a tape worm scare, Haakon was good to go!

... and yeh, we had a kickass ride on motorcycle taxis today. Quite insane with Saigon traffic!

For now, stay cool,

Cheers,

H H M