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‘This where the Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG) bounced off Temple floor then slammed into the 1000 year old wall’ said the Cambodian tourist guide. Of course he was too young to have actually been there during the fighting, but at almost half my age the terrifying part was he was alive during the War. Then he says, ‘Look here, these holes, they come from AK47′ (Kalashnikov AK47 Automatic Assault Rifle). He looks at the floor and shakes his head, he looks up sadly and says, ‘Many people die here in very bad fighting’. I touch the holes in the wall and peer out through the ornate window trying to see where the rounds came in from and there, on the other side of the moat is a small clearing in the trees. I speak not of a War fought many years ago, I speak not of a War where most people who fought are old and dying or dead, no, I speak of a War that was fought between 1975 and ended incredibly only a few years ago when we were all still dancing to Kajagoogoo, wearing our Ray Ban’s and just discovering this new Fast Food place called MacDonalds.

I am going to keep this commentary as light as possible but personally I had no idea what happened just a few short years ago. If this sort of thing is not for you then skip down to where you see this ######### and the fun will continue, but please try and read a bit. For example, I did not know that between 1975 and 1980 The Kymer Rouge (Communists) murdered an estimated 2 Million Cambodian people through torture, execution, starvation, disease and forced labour. To put that into perspective, that is One Forth of the entire population of Cambodia.

As we travelled from Thailand into Cambodia we did not really know what to expect and we were certainly in for quite a surprise. The land is exactly what you would think of when someone says to you to close your eyes and think of CAMBODIA. The people are short and sort of funny looking but always seem to be smiling and doing, stuff. Everyone is working no matter if they are young or old. Very akin to South America there is a very strong work ethic and the towns bustle along all day and night in a dizzying hub of electricity and smoke from little road side street vendors selling their sweat and tasty goods from doughy dumpling things with a fine mince paste in the middle up to green things that come wrapped in leaves and tied in a little bow with some vine leaf. I do not know the names of what I am eating, I do not know if it went ‘Woof -Baaa- or Meow’ when it was alive but it tastes great. It tastes fresh and really fills us up. It becomes a funny cycle of poke it with a chopstick, tentatively poke your tongue into it and then smile or spit, there seems to be nothing in between. I truly can say that I have eaten some of the best food I have ever tasted in this wonderful country.

Armed with a Lonely Planet guide book and a waving arm we seem to manage to convey most instructions or questions to our new little friends. ‘AMERICAN’ they yell at us. ‘DO YOU MIND!!’ we shout back, ‘British I’ll have you know’. Then always the same exchange ensues, ‘Manchester United - Lovely Jubbly - London Capital City - Jade Goody’……..hang the fluff on a minute? Jade Goody? Jade Goody? What The Fluff? How I ask you? How? And crossing the road becomes a very real game of virtual Frogger as you move from lane to lane desperately trying not to get hammered by one of the 2,000,000 plus mopeds that act like small rocket ships with jet engines blasting around the cities, town, and fields at a million miles an hour.

With a couple of 6 hour stints spent bouncing along various degrees of roads/garden paths in a bus we arrive at Siem Reap. For those more astute amongst you, this is the home of the great Angkor Wat Temples. (The largest religious Temple in the World stretching some 25 km). For those less astute and slightly more, Playstation, this is where they filmed none other than Miss Two Guns Angelina Jolie running around shooting stuff in, ‘TOMB RAIDER’. Also for the more, romantic amongst you, where they filmed the beautiful Disney movie ‘The Two Brothers’. Angkor Wat is the Buddhist equivalent of Mecca. After walking around for 2 complete days and seeing/climbing on around and through many of the Temples we came to the incredible decision that Angkor Wat is as beautiful and awe inspiring as Machu Pichu itself. The Two comparisons as so completely diverse yet they seem to have a unique draw that is difficult to describe and really needs to be witnessed to understand. It just captures a sublime blend of 1000 year old intricacy of craftmanship. Unlike places we have visited whereby the builders were forced at whip-point to build stuff, these sites just seem to have a finer detail where people loved the Gods so much that they truly worshipped their work and you really get a feel for the love created in each and every room/chamber you walk into. Bugger Me I sound like Darius ‘How much love is there in this room! Danesh’ (aka Pop Idol self abuser).

I will let the images speak for themselves at this point. There are lots but then, it is ranked as The Eighth Wonder Of The World so will form part of a large album/book.

Moving South again on a honking and hooting 6 hour jaunt of sheer terror on a bus we narrowly missed in excess of 3000 mopeds, 4 cows, several 100 chickens and a dog that bounced off the windscreen we finally arrived in the berserk hub that is Phnom Penh. With stories of torture and death ringing in our ears and minds from the books the every street sellers pimps to you at every turn we see the million mopeds, dirt, dust, heat, stench, sweat, sewage, rats, posh restaurants, Tuk Tuk’s, funny looking chicken things all strung up by their back legs hanging off the handle bars of bicycles and before we know it we are, thrust from the silence and calmness of the country to the utter madness that is the city. Here’s a question, if you need to get two large pigs to market and they have to be a) alive and b) all you have is a moped how do you do it? Answer below. Live piggies remember. Also what makes us crack up laughing is when you see someone with a moped and a 3 seater sofa on the back, or a filing cabinet, or even an 8 foot tall pane of glass!

We tentatively booked a Tuc Tuc with a funny looking bloke called October, and headed off with our new found travel buddies Sara ‘Where-Are-They-Going’ Williams and Daniel ‘That’s-L-Not-C’ Lunt. We bounce through the dusty streets to a place named simply, The Killing Fields. Some of you may have seen the film of the same name about the American Journalist and Dith Pran who covered the Cambodian War. If you haven’t, go and rent it on DVD. When we walked through the gates a silent hush deafens the air. The birds seem not to sing here, the grass seems reluctant to grow and people walk in a humble way that cries dignity and rage all in one breath. Heart breaking signs of pity and devastation detail how in a small field some 17,000 men, women, children and babies were executed. In 1980 the 129 mass graves were exhumed and a glass sided monument filled with some 9000 skulls. This bit is harrowing so skip on if you want.

Sir Winston Churchill I believe once said ‘Lest We Forget’ and the Cambodian people silently follow these thoughts. ‘We must never forget and we must always make sure the world knows what happened here’, said a haunted looking man to me as I shook my head at the thought of what had happened at this place of execution. As we walked along a little path that wound its way around the big holes in the ground, marked simply by many signs saying ‘MASS GRAVE - 600 bodies’ we noticed that there were torn rags of cloths coming through the dry earth, and upon closer inspection we noticed that what we thought were white sticks sticking up out of the ground were actually bones, human bones. The entire area is littered with bones, skulls and things that we choose not to look at too closely. I am going to stop here as what we saw was just simply too horrifying for words and the most harrowing thing that I have ever seen. Bizarrely , situated right next to the Killing Fields there is a school and echoing across the grounds as we left were the haunting sounds of children’s laughter. A heart moving and difficult thing to comprehend but that as tick follows tock and night follows day, life does follow death as the wheel of life continues to turn.

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So, here we are ready for some of the funny travel stuff. We went to the World Famous FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) in Phnom Phen. Marvelous images adorn the walls by the famous War Correspondent Al Rockoff and thoughts of people like Brian Hanrahan, Kate Ady and John Simpson reporting ‘LIVE FROM CAMBODIA’ spring to mind. But then all these images fall away, the hazy fog of a dreamy memory clears and there, smack bang in front of us, is…….a hooker! Yup, a real live hooker. Drinking a beer is a ’seductive manner’ she keeps smiling at Sara. We all immediately chuckle and giggle like small children as the lady of the night opens and closes her mini-skirted legs. Then she spies an old dude sitting there quietly reading a newspaper and in she goes. The next thing we know she’s sitting there in what I can only describe as a scene straight out of James Bond meets The Pussy Stroking Villain. (if you get my meaning) In a calm and mature manner we all pointed, let out a large ‘phwoooooar’ and ran from the famous FCC in fits of giggles.

A slightly regrettable incident followed shortly afterwards when Sara who is absolutely terrified of rats came face to face, with one of the squeaking foot long rodents. She ended up standing on a bar stool screaming suffice to say. The current rat count is so high that we have now stopped counting. Trust us all when we say that we now poke the food we are eating with our chops sticks just a little bit longer, and Ratatouille is most definitely off the menu.

Ho Chi Mihn City followed next after a flurry of border crossing and telling several nasty little Vietnamese Immigration Guards checking for ‘Swine Flu’ to bugger off in no uncertain terms when they tried to shove an ear thermometer in our ears after doing the same to a bus load of people without cleaning it. In a scene not too reminiscent of the great Mohammed Ali we were bobbing and ducking and diving trying to avoid the man attempting to stab us in the ear with his toy. After a barrage of expletives from me he finally understood our resistance and dutifully wiped the ear piece on his trousers before coming at us again like an enthusiastic Javelin chucker. Finally, we ended up with the four of us with thermometers stuffed under our armpits. Swine Flu my arse, er actually, I hope they don’t start checking that temperature!

It was at Ho Chi Mihn City Zoo that we had an awesome and frankly humbling experience. We somehow managed to break into the Zoo without paying and headed off in search of wild stuff behind bars. Within minutes we found, and I still cannot believe this, we found a keeper sitting on a bench. Nothing incredible about that? Well only the fact that he had just taken a 6 year old male Orangutan out of its cage and there it was, sitting on the bench next to him. A few people walked up and touched it, or tried to shake its hand. All I did was get close and take a few images. Each time I shot, I looked away from the camera and smile directly into the Orang’s eyes. Then it happened. The Orang who we named Ofa - Ofa Orangutan (get it?) well it looked straight back at me with with almost human like eyes and moved off the bench towards me. It reached forward and took my hand. Then in true Sir David Attenborough style or even Tarzan meets Cheetah Ofa took my hand and patted the back of my hand against its forehead. This in the monkey/ape world means ‘FRIEND’. So I did the same, then we just sort of looked at each other, nose to nose. These images speak for themselves but what then followed just got more and more wonderful. Ofa then reached his huge hands around my neck and was gripping my face, as you can see.

Having watched so many National Geographic documentaries and Wild Life On One over the years, it just sort of came naturally. Despite thinking at the start of the Round The World Tour that I would jokingly hug an Orangutan in Borneo I had no idea that this was going to happen. After the face to face experience the Orang slid off the bench and essentially sat down in my lap. With an ever increasing crowd I did not even notice apart from what was happening between my legs. After some 20 minutes of being pulled, preened, poke, pushed and licked, I said to Daniel (Sara’s BF) to try and slide in to have a cuddle. At that point it went from a unique Life On Earth experience to something that I will laugh about when I’m 60.

Ofa liked Daniel a little bit more than he liked me, quiet a lot more actually. So much more infact that if it were on video it would possibly only be given a XXX rating. Ofa stood to his full height of some 3 feet 3 inches infront of Daniel and then rolled forward and…..buried its head on his lap and would not let go. With a loud cry of ‘Ewwwww’ from the assembled crowd poor Daniel was being sexually assaulted by a Ginger Ape. Now these things are astoundingly strong at the best of times but when they have a stiffy they are on a mission, well what can I say. With both the skills of the keeper and my force in trying to prize the Apes mouth off Daniel’s nether regions we finally succeeded but not until the keeper was sadly forced to jam his thumb quite hard into Ofa’s eye socket. We all walked away looking at each other wishing that our encounter had ended on a slightly higher note. Ofa gave me a look that sort of said, ‘Er sorry for trying to hump your mate’, the keeper just sort of shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘this is not normally a gay monkey’, I walked away stunned and jibber and jabbering about my once in a lifetime experience. Daniel, poor Daniel just sort of rocked quietly in the corner as we all downed cold Cokes saying, ‘I’m not gay, I’m not gay, why did that monkey try to do gay things to me.

In truth, how can I put down in words just how lucky I was. Like the flight in the War Bird Catalina in New Zealand, or catching the Humpback Whales breaching on film in Ecuador, or like having only 10 people on the whole mountainside of Machu Pichu (or Mount Picachoo as Ali ‘No Alice Actually’ Day says) or even sharing a sunset with a wild Dolphin and Karen, how can I say how lucky I was. When an Orangutan which, incidentally means Old Man Of The Forest takes your face in its hands and pulls you so close to its eyes that you can smell its breath and hear it breathing, you know you are experiencing a truly wonderful and magical event. I am sure I will regale many of you with this story over a dinner table and a bottle of wine but when people ask me why I have such a huge desire to travel, let these images speak for themselves.

Next a 12 hour train journey took us up to Nha Trang where we took a PADI 5* Scubu Diving course at one of the only National Geographic Master Dive training schools in the world. A 4 day course was condensed into 3 and after some general head scratching and pencil on teeth tapping I surfaced through the 27c waters off Sea Horse Reef as a qualified PADI Open Water Diver. This is something that I have always wanted to do and now I have achieved it. So next stop is PADI Emergency First Responder.

Stupidly we opted for a night bus from Nha Trang up to Hoi An, a simple decision that is no understatement to say could have very easily been a fatal one. With as much honking and revving and screeching as the front row of the Chav Street Car Vauxhall Corsa Challenge we blasted off into the night on a sleeper bus. Picture if you will a bus with three rows of almost fully reclining seats  on two levels. Then drive at 100kmh on the wrong side of the road for 12 hours with the horn going constantly, going head to head with lorries and a driver that at midnight was falling asleep at the wheel. Passing on massive coach crash that blocked the road, enough was enough, so I got up and sat in the front of the coach with the driver. I don’t speak Vietnamese and he didn’t speak English but certain translations cross many seas. So I punched him in the shoulder and suggested that he ‘wake the fluff up’, and I kept hitting him and poking him until he pulled over 20 minutes later and swapped drivers. Travelling is all about experience but we choose this option over the train because we saved $8 each. At what cost safety? At what cost a life? Suffice is to say, we will never ever do that again.

We stopped at Hoi An (the place where Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear Team stopped off and had their suits made). The pace of life here is where they take the urgency out of Manana Manana. Well I got straight into the diving and did my PADI Advanced Open Water Divers Exams, and after Search & Recovery, a dive to 100 feet down, deep navigation and numerous tests and exams, I passed and am now a fully qualified PADI Advanced Open Water SCUBA Diver. Whoop whoop.

So if you have never dived before, let me explain what it feels like. You know those dreams you sometimes have about flying and out of body experiences when you glide effortlessly above the ground, leaping from building to building with the ground whizzing passed you many feet below, and then you stop and hover over something, slowly you float down as light as a feather and touch down with the grace of a ballerina. (or crash head long into a rock if your buoyancy is wrong). You float in a way that makes you hover like an Astronaut  and with the use of an inflatable jacket called a BCD you add or remove air whilst underwater. With noises like a space ship coming into land on the moon you touch down with a gentle puff of sand before lifting off again like you are a whispy spirit or a silent ghost (jemus who writes this stuff) well that is what SCUBA diving is like.

Daniel and myself dived a few days ago all the way down to 30 metres as part of our Advanced course. 30 metres is equivalent to 100 feet below the surface of the ocean. As they all say, ‘No one can hear you scream at 30 metres’. At that depth Nitrogen bubbles form in your blood stream and even the simplest of tasks like writing your name backwards becomes difficult to almost impossible, and actually quite funny. In almost zero visibility I managed to touch the back of my leg with my dive tank and damn nearly had a hot chocolate pudding moment in my wetsuit! On every single dive I have seen so many fish but these little fellows called Lion Fish are possibly my favourites. As for freaks of nature like Flying Gernard Fish which is a cross between a fish and a seagull!

By the way, a small interesting fact, Vietnam isn’t Vietnam. It is actually two words! It is Viet Nam. It means Cham (as in the Cham people) and Nam meaning South East Asia. A small but interesting fact. The other interesting thing here is the war crimes museums. They still hold America guilty as war criminals. They really dislike Americans (something that I am starting to realise is echoed all around the world). Americans are possibly the most despised race on the planet. Having said that, the museum was ruined for me by the absolutely ridiculous way they portrayed the Viet Nam War. It was just absolute propaganda and stitched history together like Frankenstein’s Monster. It made me quite, cross to see such twists of facts and lies to tell a story. But then having said that, when you see what the good old US of A did with Agent Orange you sort of see both sides of the story. I’m sure if you think of Viet Nam and stare out of the window and try to imagine what it is like you will possibly not be able to do it without hearing the words distantly in your mind like, ‘Jonny on the wire’, or ‘the gooks are out there’ or even, ‘Nam, Man you weren’t there, you don’t know what it was like man’ (whilst tugging at your hair), but of course, who could think of Viet Nam without hearing Robin Williams as Adrian Cronauer yelling, ‘Goooooooooooood Morninggggg Vieeeeeettttt NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM from the DZ to the DNZ on the Ho Chi Minh trail and Hanoi Hanna’.

So we only have about 55 days left of our Around The World Tour 2008-2009. We have passed the 300 days on the road marker and to be honest are absolutely terrified about coming back. Blondie wants to see all her friends again and so do I, but I just do not know how I am going to settle. Again in the words of Tom Paxton ‘I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound’. Wedding plans are still in the offing so more updates on that next time. As for us, well we are still heading North up through Eastern Viet Nam and will then cross into Laos, possibly back into Cambodia, then into Thailand, then Malaysia and finally fly out of Bangkok on 15th August, so if you want a Prada/Gucci/Boss Handbag or a Boss belt or tie then get your order in, and if you like Ray Bans then here is the place.

Best regards to you all and hope all is well with you all.

Cheerio from a 36c Denang, Viet Nam

Chris and Blondie xxx

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