A very good trip with quite a few highlights.

a. Hotels
The hotels were generally very good and the best ones were:

- Villa Santi, Luang Prabang, for its appropriate low impact style; no TV or internet, but it was deliberately built that way
- Angkor Resort and Spa for its pool and facilities, although its electricity was a bit `African’ at times
- Halong Plaza hotel, for its views of the Bay

The worst would have to be the Phnom Penh Hotel. Only built three years ago they said, but it manages to look tired and dirty already. Its mattresses were also as hard as concrete; when we mentioned this they added a mattress pad – which helped.

b. Guides
Again generally of a high standard. Best was Phun (? spelling) in Luang Prabang, but, because he was the first, we didn’t appreciate what a good job he did. Worst undoubtedly Bombiang (? spelling almost certainly incorrect) in Vientiane. I don’t believe that he had read the scheduled tour and so did it back to front. Having said which, I can’t imagine why we were taken to see the Dansavanh Resort anyway. The guide had no idea how to find his way around it and there is nothing to see in a casino in mid-morning. We then went to see a salt plant that was closed. Then to visit a fishing village which had caught no fish that day (because of the moon, they said). At the point where he woke up a sleeping fisherman to ask him to take us out in his boat (for the scheduled boat trip on the lake), we decided that we had had enough. The guide had never been to the village and didn’t know the fisherman or his boat, so we cancelled the boat trip and told the guide what the programme would be for the balance of the day. He did improve after that.

c. Highlights: where would we go back to?
- Luang Prabang in Laos; just a lovely place
- Angkor area in Cambodia; but at the rate they are building new hotels it will be overrun before long. Siem Reap does not yet behave like a tourist town; it is not full of souvenir shops and fast food (in fact it has very good local restaurants), but saturation and overkill may not be far off.
- The R/V Toum Teav down the Tonlé Sap lake and river
- Halong Bay; but take a boat out further next time – and in clearer weather
- Hué and Hoi An, to see what they are like when it isn’t raining

d. What would we not wish to do again
- water puppets; once was enough; twice was way over the top. It might well be historic folk art, but the characters `talk’ to each other in Vietnamese and you can’t understand it – and, in an age of computer-generated effects, it all just looks so amateurish. Plus, in Hanoi, the seating in the theatre assumes that your thighs are the same (diminutive) length as the local population – so it is not comfortable – and for one hour!

e. Other Comments
- Food; we always tried to eat the local food, which is luckily not difficult. It was also very good and cheap too. Khmer food was particularly good.
- Language; English worked well in Laos and Cambodia (or occasionally French), but was more of a problem in Vietnam. Hence, perhaps the plea in the Lonely Planet Vietnam phrase book “Do you speak English/ Does anyone here speak English?”
- Flights were generally on time, or, if not, took off early! Vietnam Airlines idea of breakfast however owes more to Oxfam than Escoffier.
- It was interesting that the principal other tourists that we encountered were
o Thai – in Laos
o South Korean in Cambodia (noisy and rude people – the locals said)
o Chinese in Vietnam
Didn’t meet many Americans; perhaps not a great surprise, since they covertly bombed Laos and Cambodia and supported the genocidal Khmer Rouge, apart from their general misreading of the situation (and carpet bombing) in Vietnam.
- Traffic was non-existent in Laos, but chaotic in Cambodia and, particularly, in Vietnam. We sent to our daughters a photo of bikes and scooters going through an intersection in Hué and asked them if they could tell which side of the road they drive on in Vietnam…..; they were all over the place. Hiring a self-drive car in Vietnam would be a big mistake. To get across a road as a pedestrian you have to walk slowly but steadily – and they drive around you – it works!
- Wars; the normal condition of these countries (but particularly Cambodia) in the past fifty years is that they have been at war. Is the current peace just an interlude? Hope not.
- Money; credit cards were generally not usable, so it was cash everywhere. Luckily we had lots of cash dollars and could supplement with resort to ATMs. In Hanoi, Anne bought a bra in a shop displaying the `Visa’ sign, but when we tried to use a Visa card it turned out that it was the machine in the shop over the road – and when they got it out of its drawer and plugged it in – it didn’t work! So I tried to pay with dollars (last full day, so getting low on local currency), but that meant a visit to the local jewellers’ shop to change money.
- Service; apparently the French colonialists said that `the Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Laotians listen to it growing’. This is now reflected in the speed that things happen. In restaurants in Hanoi service is ridiculously fast; in Cambodia, it is normal and in Laos – well, you had nothing else to do anyway, did you?.
- Internet; available just everywhere at a good speed. In Luang Prabang, you have to remove your shoes before entering the café – obvious, as the café is the new temple, I suppose – and is where you can expect to meet Buddhist monks. It was odd that in some of the hotels internet was free (Angkor, Hué, Halong Bay), but in others there was a charge. In Saigon the charge was $18/day!
- Water; bottled water was provided free in all hotels, even when they said that the tap water was drinkable. On the tours in Laos and Cambodia water was also provided, but not in Vietnam. Drinking water is cheap everywhere, even in restaurants, so, if you know you need it, it is easy.
- Markets; after Africa, it was wonderful to be able to walk through a market without being constantly hassled. A great experience in all countries.



Peter W. Roberts
11 November 2007