Our World Trip: 3 Countries - 3 days

This overland tour suddenly came round and almost took us by surprise. A highlight of the holiday, we had been looking forward to it for a long time.

Landing by tender at Nha Trang into a small Vietnamese fishing port the tour began with a visit to the White Buddha – the first of many! Vietnam held many memories for some of the people on the tour, two at least having served there with the US Army and preferred not to say a lot about it. The people are charming and our guide helpful as he showed us around and explained the history. All the worst things happened in ‘a former time’ or in ‘the civil war’ and are not up for discussion either here or in Cambodia.

A quick visit to a silk factory where we were given white tea and watched the beautiful girls sewing beautiful garments, tapestries and portraits before we headed off for the airport at Nha Trang to get to Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City as it properly known) – not before we bought the conical hats at the market! Funny how the airline tags all had ‘SGN’ as the destination!

Nha Trang’s airport was formerly the US Airbase adjacent to Cam Ranh Bay – the largest US naval base, albeit that the terminal is ‘off the shelf Chinese standard issue’ so there was plenty of runway for us. There is hardly a trace of the base visible from the air, the whole area is being turned into luxury resorts to exploit the lovely white sand and blue sea.

Into Saigon, a quick walk between domestic and international terminals and a wait for a huge storm and time to pass, collecting visa information together for Cambodian Immigration. OOPS!! – someone had forgotten to bring the necessary photo – PANIC!! Robert’s IPhone to the rescue and the photo was emailed to the ship and back to the tour agent in Siem Reap. Amazing technology and we are up a bottle of Chablis as a result!

It was dark when we arrived in Cambodia so the full luxury of the Sokha hotel in Siem Reap was not apparent until the morning, but the room and the buffet were welcome and fantastic! No time to swim in the salt pool, even though the temperature and humidity were in the 80s all night.

An early start for temple-spotting; we had a huge programme to do over 1 1/2 days and many kilometres to travel.

The history of ancient Angkor began in the 9^th Century with the ascent of the Khymer kingdom and through bloody conquest the civilisation settled down with its capital at Angkor founded in 889 AD. A series of kings established temples and cities in the Angkor region with the religious buildings constructed in stone and the human dwellings built of wood. These kings built reservoirs, hospitals, roads and lakes, establishing a rich culture and society. Consequently, after the abandonment of Angkor at the end of the 16^th Century (when the capital moved to Phnom Penh because of the fighting with the emerging Siamese kingdom) only the stone buildings survive. The religion changed from Hindu to Buddhist as the years went by, so styles and purpose changed too,

Although not entirely forgotten by the locals – Angkor Wat itself has been used continuously – many of the temples were lost in the jungle and were first rediscovered by French archaeologists in 1860. There are still many more to discover and the process continues as the landmine removal clears the ground from the conflicts of the last 50 years.

It is impossible to describe the grandeur, scale and sheer wonder of the carving, design and effort invested in these temples. We visited six sites, of which Angkor Wat itself was the most magnificent, being the largest religious monument, enclosing an area of 82 hectares containing 600m of narrative bas-relief and over 2,000 apsaras (Celestial dancers who entertain the gods). The carvings are astonishing, being almost like wallpaper. Every wall, doorway, door jamb, corbel, pediment and lintel is covered with the most intricate work, many of the carvings telling stories of battles, murders, religious events and personalities. The groundworks, moats and walls and enormously heavy; some of the stone being carried over 20km to get to site. All done by paid labour without slaves. With no need for the enclosed congregation and worship volumes required by European cathedrals of the time the Khymer architects were satisfied with bulk and short spans, so huge beams and many columns with corbelling make for a perfect base for elaborate carvings of breathtaking scale.

Some sites have been restored and some are in the process, but this is a poor Country. Film-makers used Ta Promh for ‘Tomb Raider’ and that’s the one with the trees growing through the buildings.

Back to the hotel after more elephants, temples, dancers, monks and thousands of tourists for a hot and humid evening meal around the pool, entertained by a brilliant dance group.

An early start for the airport through the standing water from a huge overnight storm and a short flight to Bangkok, arriving in Thailand in the rain. Never complain about the M25 – the traffic in Bangkok is 100 times worse! Lunch at the Bangkok Sofitel on the 34^th floor gave the rain time to dry out as we admired the view before heading for the Golden Temple, itself a small city with 100 buildings and magnificently decorated statuary and shrines amongst the old Royal Palace gardens.

It’s a fair drive from Bangkok to Laem Chabang where the ship was alongside the dock waiting for us - the last to return – but we needn't have rushed as there was a fault with a bow thruster door which delayed departure by at least an hour! A tug helped us out, so we don’t know if it has been fixed or not, but we certainly slept well that night whilst the ship sailed into the South China Sea to Singapore!!
Rather a lot of photos to caption, so just done a few.