Days 143 to 145. Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City

With our days spent visiting the pricier and more popular activities in Phnom Penh, we scared ourselves by calculating we spent £65. Obviously a big part of this was firing bullets, but museums and taxi tips also took a bite. We decided that Friday 24th and day 143 would be spent in walking distance and with less tuk tuks. This isn't easy as tuk tuk drivers push hard for their trade.

We started with a pleasant walk down Sisowath Quay, a promenade running parallel to the muddy Tonle Sap river. You can see the French influence, as they tried to create a St Malo in sweltering South East Asia. You also are left guessing, or referring to old photos, to get a feel how magical Sisowath Quay would have looked when Tamarind Trees were planted along to promenade. The war took these away for materials and to remove hiding places for snipers.

Our first stop was intended to be the Royal Palace, but every tuk tuk driver told us this wasn't open until 2pm. Being told things are closed is an old trick, and half the time it is true, but all the time it's a guise to get you into a tuk tuk and taken to places you don't want to go, but provide commissions for the tuk tuks. Nothing wrong with this, they are business people. We killed our time with the museum to the right of the Royal Palace. The museum is well worth a visit. The age of the religious artifacts is inspiring. 6th century, 12th century. You see how Khmer culture, maybe didn't flip from the hindu tri-theism of Brahma, Vishnu and  Shiva to Buddhism. Rather it seems to have taken beliefs from both cultures. Unlike Indian Hinduism, Brahma is not given much prominence, rather the other two. Vishnu is for preservation, and Shiva is for destruction. I can't remember what that elephant thing Ganesh does, but he pops up a lot also. Anyway its a good detour.

We didn't end up visiting the Royal Palace. We queued up and bought a ticket. We were prepared for covering up if need be. I brought the zip up bottoms for my trousers should shorts not be acceptable. My large Moroccan turban was also there for Sarah should she need to cover her shoulders. On paying for our ticket, the vendor took no heed of Sarah wrapping the turban come shawl around her shoulders. On walking towards ticket inspection they did. Apparently they want you to buy a t-shirt to cover up. We'd spent $12.50 to get in and they tell us at this stage. A t-shirt with "I love Cambodia" or "Killing Fields 2012" is acceptable, but a conservative scarf isn't. We'd seen enough temples and buddhas, so we successfully got a refund and left.

My requested stop was The Foreign Correspondents Club (The FCC), a few minutes walk along Sisowath Quay. After reading Highways to War and The Killing Fields, I just wanted to sit for a while where all the world's, or maybe all the Western, correspondents sat after a day reporting. Relaxing here before writing up the reports which brought the horrors of war into everyone's living room at dinner time. Vietnam and by default, Cambodia would have been TV's first big war. People weren't ready to see uncensored war while tucking into mashed potato. In recent times, less naive war reporting is skillfully edited to tell the truth without pictures of blood and intestines. It was also here in the FCC that the remaining few reporters sat until the pumps ran dry, and the Khmer Rouge at last injected some reality into the scotch soaked club. I sat and looked out over the Tonle Sap and tried to imagine a quiet night, but occasionally the dark horizon would be lit up with the Khmer Rouge fighting only 15km away. Knowing this would all end any time now. The war reporters on the 1970s Cambodia, were often those who enjoyed their time in Vietnam. For 5 years or so they had enjoyed rides on helicopters, building close relationships with other journalists. Phnom Penh was the last of that. Americans Schanberg, and Al Rockoff, the British of Jon Swain and Barry Morgan were the last to leave to Indochinese Party, and that party faded here, before it had brandy and cigars in The French Embassy. Then the Khmer Rouge lock down of Cambodia. I really felt the weight of history in that room.

Day 144, we caught the bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City. The journey was excellent. The border formalities seemed a little different. We handed our passports over to the bus staff. They forwarded it to Cambodian departures which expedited our leaving Cambodia. At the Vietnam point of entry we too had to give our passports to the bus staff, who passed them to Vietnamese immigration. They obviously stamped them while we dragged our back packs. They shouted our name, our passports were handed back and we went through into Vietnam. Past the red white and blue Angkor Wat flags of the Cambodian Kingdom, and past the yellow star on red background, meaning I have for the first time in my life entered a socialist republic. Ironically I had also passed into a much wealthier country. Vietnam like China has learnt to loosen the reigns on economics and accumulation of wealth, while keeping a hand on politics, society and information. How does this effect us? Not at all really, there seems no restriction to movement.

An overpriced taxi ride to the District 1 area, the back pack area of HCMC followed. Then finding a really agreeable hotel down a small alleyway off Duong Bui Vien. I'm gathering Duong means road by now. First meal being noodles and with that a promise that my time in Vietnam will be spent eating Vietnamese or Asian food as much as possible, and with chopsticks as well. Later that evening I was really wanting some Pho Bo, or beef noodle soup. We found a place with just Vietnamese customers and the Pho was perfect. The beef noodle soup comes to you in a big intimidating bowl, but a side with chillis, lime leaves, basil, soy sauce is placed to your left to flavour as you wish. So morish. You left full but not gorged. Hunger refreshed, but still full of energy.

The next day, now Sunday, we set ourselves a walking tour of The Reunification Palace and The War Remnants museum. It isn't a bad walk from our back pack haven to the park on the edge of The Reunification Palace. In the heat things get tricky, but HCMC is not as bad as Bangkok by a long stretch. We walked through Cong Vien Ban Hoa Park, and had a glimpse of Vietnamese life. There seemed to be some scout groups and activities. Firstly, a group of kids were pledging allegiance to the flag. God I mean making kids pledge political allegiance to anything before they can vote, what fanatical country would do that.... oh! Anyway it seemed a sports day of sort with boxing, dragging kids on sticks in a race, about as demented as the 'egg and spoon' race we did at school. Still this park was just a route through.

The Reunification Palace, was our first piece of propaganda. On 30th April 1975, the Liberation Army, or NVA as the Americans called them crashed a tank through the gates, the army followed ran up the steps of the palace. The government of the Republic surrendered, and the Vietnam war was over. The Americans left in two years prior, so saying they were defeated is oversimplistic. Vietnamese propaganda will say the NVA kindly forgave the South Vietnamese for calling in the yanks, placing NVA and Viet Cong in tiger cages, and from that point you had a lovely unified country. Of course this is bollocks, no wounds heal that easy. That said the victory possibly ensured that modern Hanoi is not Pyongyang. The claim that The Palace is left as it was in 1975, with all the retro furniture and telephones, its quite frozen in time. The basement is like the cabinet war rooms in Westminster. You see the maps and plans where the war was commanded. It's a good visit. The pictures of the old palace, which was the French Governor Generals house, and seeing it replaced with this soviet inspired monstrosity, is disheartening. Damn fabricated concrete to hell.

Gotta love a bowl of Pho Bo.

A block north west of the Palace is The War Remnants Museum. My advice for visiting this, don't do so on a full stomach. Secondly, be very aware this is one side of the story, and if there is any determinant that information is a restriction in a communist country, it's in the propaganda of their museums. That said they present a good case for the prosecution, in that Americans were ruthless bastards in the fog of war. Pictures line the wall showing Viet Cong prisoners as blown up mangled corpses, held by a GI with a casual smile. Viet Congs thrown alive from air born helicopters, dragged by US tanks. I found the photos of agent orange victims too hard to stomach so I couldn't be in that room long enough to read everything. The massacre of Son My Village where 500 Vietnamese civilians were butchered, women children, old and young under the charge they were hiding Viet Cong. We know very well that this was a war that went way out of hand, in America's need to win at any costs, but refusal to accept for all the superior air power they were going to lose this one. The museum does show the pain of US soldiers also. One picture of a colonel (I think) crying at a desk taken by British photographer for Life magazine, Larry Burrows, is a simple description that many were victims here. Don't get me wrong here, if I was around in the 60's I would have certainly protested against Vietnam, and I'm proud Britain stood up to the USA and wouldn't sent troops. I just think museums have a responsibility to be balanced, and this wasn't. Outside on the forecourt there are tanks and planes and bombs salvaged from the war, and these make good photos. It's a necessary museum to visit.

So far I'm really liking HCMC. Its seems more inclusive than Bangkok. The Vietnamese will be drinking at the next table as these people have money also. Money from real work, not just flipping banana pancakes and driving tuk tuks. The narrow alleyways, one of which hosts our hotel feel authentic, but still feel safe. The parks at night thrive with the vibrancy of HCMC residents playing badminton or jogging. Taking advantage of the cooler evenings to exercise. How can I describe it quickly? HCMC is a hybrid of Bangkok and Hong Kong. We are staying a week, before the long trip up the coast towards Hanoi. I'm rather thinking Vietnam will be the cherry on the cake in our travels. This may be a bold comment which can bite me in the arse.