Trip Report--Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia

Old Nov 21st, 2004, 05:19 AM
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Trip Report--Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia

I hope that this report will be informative. It is my opinions only but I will be glad to give them!

Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
2 nights Continental Hotel. Good location but a bit past its prime. It is where foreign correspondants stayed during the Veit Nam war.
Activites?Walking tour of old Saigon
Trip to Cholon market (Chinese part of town) and Thein Hau temple
Dinner cruise on Saigon River?so so food but interesting fire dancer show.
Daytrip to Cu Chi Tunnels (Viet cong hide out during war)
And drive to Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh. (Interesting)

Fly to Da Nang, drive to Hoi An for 2 nights at Hoi An Hotel. (Located one block from oldtown Hoi An, a World Heritage Site) Good hotel with nice pool and good breakfast buffet.
Activites?Walk around the old town,
Cooking demonstration at Café Hai (best food so far which was prepared by us under the direction of Mr. Hai.
Daytrip back to Da Nang to visit the Cham Museum then on to Hue via the Hai Van Pass (one of the most scenic drives).

One night in Hue at Saigon Morin Hotel.
Activities?drive to Imperial tombs?really amazing.
Boat trip on rickety boat up the Perfume River back to hotel. Yikes.
Trip to Imperial City of Hue, heavily damaged by the Americans during the war. Still interesting.


Fly to Hanoi, stay 2 nights at Guoman Hotel (nice hotel)
Activities?visit Ba Dinh Square where Ho Chi Minh is buried. :However his body was in Moscow being refurbished.
Saw Hanoi Hilton, not much left but it is a museum which I didn?t go into.
Went to Thang Long Water Puppet Theater?you should really see this.

Fly to Bangkok for overnight because of airline connections to Laos. Stayed at Rama Gardens Hotel. Nice but not near city center. However we did take a tour of the River and Canals and the Royal Barge museum as I had been to Thailand before and had seen the Imperial palace. It was incredibly hot this day and every day.

Fly to Luang Prabang, Laos. Stayed at the La Residence Phou Vao (formerly Pansea). A lovely hotel but not walkable to town. The hotel did run a shuttle or one could take a tuk tuk for $1. I liked this small town. It was very walkable but the people are very poor.
Activites?Baci Ceremony at Heritage House
Walk through daily market.
Boat trip up the Mekong River to the Tham Ting Caves to see hundreds of Buddas left there over the past few hundred years, Then across the river to eat at a restaurant high above the river. We had to climb up the river banks for about 50 feet up. Reataurant was really good for being so remote. I loved this whole trip
Got up early one morning to feed the monks as they passed by with their pots. Our guide had proved the rice and we would scoop out a bit to put in the monks pots as they paraded around the town. Never saw anything like that before!

Two good restaurants?Three Nagas restaurant
L?Elephant, especially good.

Fly to Phnom Penh, stay 2 nights at Sunway Hotel (large hotel next to the Grand Raffles) Nice hotel for Phnom Penh. This town depressed me the most and I couldn?t wait to leave really. Cambodia has been at war until about 5 years ago so the whole place is still a depressing mess.
Activites?trip to the ?killing fields? and S-21 interrogation Center. This is the Khmer Rouge way of dealing with their intelligencia and urban people. They wanted everyone to be rice growers.
Visit to Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda.

Fly to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Stay first a Angkor Star Hotel but it was so bad that our group checked out the next morning and stayed at the Sofitel, which was a 5 star hotel. One could spend a couple days just enjoying this hotel.
Activities---trip to Angkor Wat, climb to the top of the big tower, very steep. Then one to Bayon then on to Ta Prohm.
Next day trip to Banteay Srei
Evening hike up a big hill near Angkor wat to view sunset and view of Angkor wat. Needed to watch out for the elephants walking up the trail. Lots of tourists here but it was an interesting sight all around.

Next day we left of the USA, took two days and two nights to get home?used Singapore Air through Singapore and Taipei.

Final comments?
I took the recommended injections and took Melarone for the time in Laos and Cambodia. I had no problem with Melarone but two of the people had a reaction like malaise and felling rotten. Only one place did we need to sleep under mosquito netting at night?Laos. There were mosquitos as sunset most evenings so had to use Deet spray or lotion then and wear socks!

There might have been ATMs in Viet Nam but no need to use them. Just change a few US dollars into local money. A credit card could be used in larger hotels and restaurants.
I took $50 in US one dollar bills and some other small bills to use in Laos and Cambodia where everything is priced in US dollars. All this meant carrying more US dollars than I wanted too but street crime is low except in Saigon around the Post office and the
Continental Hoel area. No one had anything stolen?unlike some other trips to Europe where someone always gets pickpocketed.

Lastly?It would be very difficult to do this trip on ones own?too many logistics, flight schedules that change. I found it interesting but it is not for everyone. It was sooo hot and humid everyday and by noon we were a slimey mess just waiting to get back to the shower. I did not wear shorts but cropped pants and sandels. Good walking shoes were necessary for walking through ruins and tunnels. Shorts were not allowed in temples or even backless sandels. Just be prepared for the heat and keep an open mind.

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Old Nov 21st, 2004, 07:08 AM
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Margo,
thank you for great trip report. Looks like a fun trip. Did you use any guides besides Thailand?
re: Malarone, I felt "rotten" as you described it from it and I usually do not have problems with any medications. I stopped taking it.
sophia
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Old Nov 21st, 2004, 01:26 PM
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very nice report thank you...

we used malerone with no side problems...

i disagree with you that you could not do the trip on your own...its very easy in each of the places you went if you do lots of planning and get assistance where you need it...some people do not like to do that so they should get full assistance...

why did it take 2 days to get home...didn't you fly directly from singapore to the usa??
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Old Nov 22nd, 2004, 04:54 AM
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This was a tour of 18 people run by Road Scholar, a division of Elderhostel for people of any age. Peoples age ranged from 45 through 75. We had a full-tour Vietnamese guide who handled the travel logistics such as luggage and airport transfers and restaurants. Also had a full-tour educational guide who provided sight-seeing information and assisted with the daily activities. In each town we had a local guide to get us from place to place and also provide information on what we were seeing. Again I say that doing as much as we did in the amount of time we had would have been difficult without local help. I read a great deal about the areas visited but was not willing to spend more time on making arrangements to visit the VC tunnels near Saigon or booking reservations to that remote restaurant on the bank of the Mekong River for example. I know that some people pride themselves on doing this sort of thing but I would rather see as much as I can.

For the return flight home: We left Siem Reap at about 1030 in the morning, flew to Phnom Penh, then on to Singapore (that is one day). Then on to Taipei and then to LAX (that was overnight and another day) to arrive in LAX in evening. Then a 4 hour layover to take the redeye to Washington Dulles (another night) to arrive at 630am.
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Old Nov 23rd, 2004, 03:49 AM
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Thank you for this report. Very instructive. We are just back from Myanmar and have made up our mind to do a trip like yours next year around this period, combining Vietnam, Luang Prabang and Angkor Wat. Did you have a travel agent that took care of the whole trip, for the three countries, or was each country programme set up with local help from an agent in each country separately?
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Old Nov 23rd, 2004, 12:57 PM
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Cram: The program was put together by Road Scholar which you can find on the internet. www.RoadScholar.org. It included most meals and all activites, (no optional things) I was quite pleased with the restaurants as I could have never found some of them and then I wouldn't know if they were "safe" by Western standards. I did not get sick at all, but I was careful.
How was your trip to Myanmar? Now that sounds adventuresome to me! I am going to give Asia a rest and go back to visiting castles and gardens in Europe.
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Old Nov 24th, 2004, 07:11 AM
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Margo, thks for your info on the agent. Sounds good to me as a basis, although I usually try not to have all meals arranged from before.
For Myanmar: have a look at my trip report I posted on Nov 13. It's quite a bit back on the list already, because this IS a busy conversation board. You'll find it somewhere at number 100+ or so. If there are questions, launch. Enjoy your castles in Europe. Where by the way?
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Old Nov 24th, 2004, 02:09 PM
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Great report. Margo is right on when she says you need some guidance for that first trip to these places. You see more and the transportation needs to be arranged before travel. On my third trip to Thailand and Vietnam it was no problem doing it independently. You learn so much more when you have a guide and driving would be insane in these areas.
You have shared much good information. to my favorite areas of the world.
Margo, I also thought Phnom Phen was one of the most depressing places I have ever visited.
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