singapore

swiss hotel: moet champ treat **********


*****food market, karis ready for action


singap by night ************


******sushi treat (le vrai avec les plats qui circulent sur plateau)


foot massage @ airport. extra


what a change this is! the moment the plane touched down, we felt as though we were in a different world. the streets were spotless, English was spoken by everyone even the vendors in the little night markets (no wonder as it is one of the official languages of Singapore!) and tall buildings littered the sky, almost in a race to reach the highest point first.

the first day we walked Chinatown to a pulp! the quaint colorful buildings, packed tightly next to each other, lined with red Chinese lanterns was a lovely (and maybe slightly kitsch-ish) sight. and oh so clean! there we raided the various food stalls, testing a dish from here and there, along with a freshly squeezed fruit juice...eating amongst ethnic groups of all colors and ages. a truly fabulous experience.
the red dot design museum was "interesting" with some innovations that were quite beyond us...even a South African one came to the show! nice one!
to end off a sight-seeing day, we had extravagant sundowners at the highest rooftop hotel bar, overlooking the city. it was somewhat of a task trying to look the part, after two months of backpacking, it is not the easiest. with that said, Moet has never tasted so sweet!
to be original, dinner was chosen from stalls along the quay. my choice was fresh prawns cooked in a bubbling curry sauce. it is true to say that the messier it is, the better it tastes. i am the proof!

day two was browsing little India and orchard street, escaping the sporadic rain in one of the many shopping centers that line the street and dining on sushi. we did not have too much time to wander elsewhere in Singapore. we will just have to come back for that...

************************************

quel choc d'atterir a singapour et de se retrouver au milieu d'une ville a l'occidentale au milieu de l'Asie.
l'aeroport est vraiment royal pour tout routard qui se doit, en effet, je ne sais plus ou donner de la tete entre l'internet gratuit, le massage de pieds par une machine en lisant le journal, les ecrans geants avec retransmission des JO...
On se trouve une auberge grace aux hotesses speciales pour routard qui gere tout 24h/24 depuis l'aeroport.
Durant ces deux jours, on se promene dans les rues de Little India et de China Town, qui sont deux quartiers assez sympas: vendeurs ambulants, petit resto rapides en bord de route donnent des allures de pays d'asie mais ca reste bien trop propre et trop ordonne, ce qui est appreciable jusqu'a un certain point, pas au point de payer 7 euros le cappucino cependant. (et oui, je vais avoir du mal a me remettre des prix du laos/cambodge/vietnam...)
et puis il y a les grattes ciel du colonial district qui donnent des torticolis a force de lever la tete.
On se fait un petit plaisir le soir au Swiss hotel pour un verre au 73e etage avec vue sur la ville, karis, elegante comme tout dans sa nouvelle robe et moi pouilleux dans mon jean pas lave depuis le depart.
On dine dans un des nombreux food market sur les bords du port.
Le deuxieme jour, on se promene dans les magasins et je sens rapidement que je ne suis pas a ma place.
C'est vrai que ca va faire deux mois que je ne suis pas rentre dans un centre commercial et que je ne
m'en porte pas plus mal, loin de la...
deja deux jours, c'est l'heure de retourner a l'aeroport. cool, je vais encore pouvoir me faire masser les pieds...

Angkor wat ??

angkor wat -----------------------------------tree overtaking a temple


seb helping the gods to win the tug of war ----- hanging with the heads in bayon @ 6 am

hidden buddha ------------------------------------riverbed sculptures


angkor official guide (is this lonely planet an original ?) --- snake bites ?


Cedric et le barbu a Angkor wat bar -------------angkor beers and the bad eggs


fruit shake anyone ? ----------------------------night food stores for late snack after big night


bayon having good times with us ----gin tonic pitcher (check bayon is not happy)


Niall and his mate -------------------Kristan intense concentration before the pool shot

Apres un long trajet en bus impliquant qq stops gastronomiques ou vendeurs de fruits, araignees fries et grillons se battent pour nous vendre leur produits, on arrive a siem reap lessives. Siem Reap est une petite ville tranquille et assez jolie qui gere quand meme ses 2 millions de touristes annuels. La ville est super dans la mesure ou elle permet de relacher un peu la pression (plein de restos et bars sympas) apres les longues journees passees a Angkor.
Angkor est une vraie merveille, notament le bayon (le temple avec les 150 tetes de buddhas qui te regardent d'en haut) et les portes d'entrees amenant a angkor tom (representant les dieux et demons dans un combat de tir a la corde pour decider du sort de l'humanite).
Angkor phrom reste le plus impressionnant avec la jungle qui a repris possession des lieux (des racines monstrueuses qui semblent engloutir les murs de pierres)
Aussi, Siem Reap, c'est l'occasion de se retrouver avec Alex, Charlotte, et Kriston de Luang Prabang et de renconter Niall, qui va nous suivre dans notre epique periple siem reap/bangkok en bus. 12 h d'enfer apres une soiree plus qu'arrosee (a 3 USD le pichet de biere, meme dave peut pas trouver mieux dans paris) et un reveil sur le fil a 7h00, on se fait le sentier (car il n'y a pas de route) dans un bus surcharge sans clim (pas de soute pour les sacs donc il faut s'imaginer 40 vadrouilleurs et leurs enormes sac a dos empiles dans les rangees et un peu partout)...
La journee sur Bangkok nous permet de se refaire une petite garde robe de t shirt sur khao san road et de reprendre notre souffle avant le vol pour Singapore.

perhaps a combination of hoi an and luang prabang, i would say. the same chilled, mellow, friendly vibe that made us like/ love the above places so much.

initally, the sole purpose of going to siem reap was not to explore the city too much, but to use it as a base for the angkor temples.

days were completed with temple viewings by tuk-tuk or bicycle. we bought a 3-day pass and it was almost not enough. one cannot imagine the details and spleandour of the temples. what was nice with this pass, was that when we (and the camera) were tired of them, we were able to leave...and come back and leave again. three that i loved were angkot thom, ta prohm and ta keo. angkor wat was also splendid but it was a little worked up, i found. perhaps i should not compare...

evenings were packed with hanging out with the fab bad eggs, juliette, nialle and kristan, eating at mmm delicious roadside stalls, the odd g pitcher and befriending the " wa dollllaaaaaaa" kids on the street.

yet another location, i was sad to leave and to think that it was replaced by a 13 hour bus trip to bangkok was quite dismal.

pnom penh

kid graffiti ----------------------------------colonial house in pnom penh


national museum ---------------------------------S21 jail cell numbers


S 21 jail cells (for prisoners being tortured) --s21 courtyard

Court sejour a pnom penh et c'est bien dommage. en effet, la ville me plait. les anciennes batisses coloniales avec balcon et vue sur le mekong donnent pas mal de charme. La pauvrete est omnipresente et les invalides de guerre sont a chaque coin de rue. On sent vraiment que la guerre a laisse des traces sur les gens qui malgre tout survivent comme ils peuvent.
Le musee du S21 (ancienne ecole primaire transformee en centre de detention et de torture par les khmers rouges) retracant les exterminations du regime de Pol pot est tout simplement bouleversant. Ca me touche d'autant plus que les gens de ma generation ont vecu cette guerre.
Le reste du sejour se passe a boire qq coups avec Cedric, un pote de hanoi, au FCC et au Elsewhere.

thinking back to border crossings, it has always involved a long-ass bus trip at times airconditioned and way too many food stops at designated food stalls. but arriving in phnom phen was well worth it; a surprisingly large city (i had imagined something the size of vientiane!) located alongside tonle river, with loads of cool french style cafes, restaurants and bars, notably "the fcc" and "elsewhere".

together with cedric - our newly acquainted almost viet frenchman - we explored the hoods of p.phen, disuading him from eating fried spiders and bugs of ALL sizes.

alas, our visit was not all rosey as we visited the tuol sleng museum, also known as s-21 (security prison 21). it used to be a high school until the khmer rouge came in and got all nasty. what is sick is that the moment one enters into one of the numerous classrooms where victims were torutured, one actually gets a chill down the spine. it is one extremely weird sensation and one leaves feeling quite depressed, looking at the middle-aged people in the street in a different light. how did they manage to survive and be so kind?

saigon connexion

lakanal connexion (tam,khanh,barbu,matthieu)----khanh's new kitten (momo)

quizzz

WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE ??
2000 DONGS AT STAKE IF YOU NAME THEM ALL...

motorbike you / saigon

khanh la saigon girl et un barbu

ho chi minh city/ saigon
is constantly bustling. i don't think there is one minute...or rather second of the day when there is not a troop of motorbikes coming at you at a speed. this is one time when the viets are not smiling, but rather grinning with a glint of je ne sais quoi in their eyes.
our guidebook mentioned that when crossing the road, one should make eye contact and continue slowing with no sudden movements...sounds a bit like bull fighting, doesn't it?

khanh has kindly put us up in her flat and has shown us around to 5-star rooftop bars, dodgy clubs and wonderful local restaurants. besides that we have sorted out the paperwork at both the south african and french embassy, visited a few museums (the war remnants is a winner) and have been offered a motorbike by ever passer-by.

hence the title, when you are offered a ride, the process is thus;
step 1:
step 2: hey! hey!
if you don't react, hello!
step 3: motorbike you?!
if you continue walking, they repeat
motorbike you!!!!
with that, you lift your hand shoulder height and in a cupped form, you move it left to right. this they clearly understand as NO! we have found that words are not listened to so the gest is the way forward.
another particularity of these bikers is that no matter the number of passengers, they will offer you a lift anyway. he always has a friend nearby to assist in transporting 7 foreigners. incredible!

i wonder if cambodia will be the same with them bikers?!

************************************************************
ho chi minh city,
lors de cette etape, on se pose chez khanh. On est accueilli comme des princes et on en profite. A Ho chi minh, on passe pas mal de temps a l'ambassade de france afin de faire les declarations de vols, puis on visite qq musees, notament celui de la guerre qui retrace de maniere assez brute les horreurs de la guerre. Je passe pas mal de temps a essayer de retracer l'histoire du vietnam afin d'y voir clair. On retrouve Juliette, notre ami hollandaise de Sapa, avec laquelle on passe une super soiree et qui nous fait oublier nos soucis avec l'ambassade en nous racontant ses peregrinations vietnamiennes. On partage aussi qq delicieux diners avec matthieu, khanh et tam. Notament samedi soir, ou l'on goute a la petite specialite locale: le karaoke. Il se trouve que je chante mieux en vietnamien qu'en anglais. On finit la soiree dans la boite de Saigon: l'Apocalypse Now.

On profite aussi de cette etape a Ho chi minh pour ne rien faire, et glander chez khanh. Il est aussi temps pour moi d'investir dans qq t-shirts premierement afin de renouveler les couleurs des photos du blog (j'ai eu plusieurs remarques de personnes concernes par le fait que je portais toujours le meme t-shirt...) mais aussi pcq j'en ai tout simplement marre de revoir tous les matins les memes fringues.
Ho chi minh, c'est aussi l'enfer des motorbikes et il faut un peu de temps pour s'habituer aux incessants 'motorbike you' des chauffeurs en quete de clients.
Tiens, alors que tout etait paisible, le ciel vient de nous tomber sur la tete, il pleut comme jamais et pour une fois que je ne suis pas dessous, ca me fait sourire...


notre dame de saigon ------------------street games


karaoke night: (anne, khanh et matthieu) versus (melanie, tam et riska)


pretoria phone booth --------- treat breakfast after a hard day @ french consulate

mui ne

Mui Ne est un petite ville sur la plage au sud du Vietnam.
La plage reste tres belle les contructions de resort un peu partout.
Mui Ne est aussi cense etre un spot reconnu pour le surf et le kite surf. Pas de chance, c'etait le calme plat lors de notre sejour.
Aux alentours, on a pu faire un tour au village de pecheurs, a canyon rouge, puis aux dunes de sables blancs surlesquelles on s'est permis quelques sessions de sandboarding bien sympa.

*******************************************
what a nice surprise mui ne was...strange yet nice. there is the beach, resorts, one road and restaurants. i think it would be the ideal place just to chill out and relax, do nothing...because there is not all that much to do especially when the waves are small or non-existant, as they were when we were there.
so to compensate, we explored the surrounding areas and dunes. there are 3 coloured dunes; red (the "canyon" was the start/ end of them), white and yellow. the white is where we went sandboarding which was loads of fun, even the monster uphill walk!
fairy river was really beautiful, starting off as an average slightly polluted stream and ending in a spectacular (little) river with a rock face of various colours.


fisherman boats....quite something when they manoeuver to land on the beach with big waves


karis in the red canyon--------------------------------------------fairy stream/river

sand boarding sessions