Okay, put on your time travel hats because we're fast forwarding to Vietnam again. We'll be returning you to Cambodia shortly and the blog will officially be in Vietnam soon. We promise. Acrobatics show set up in a road intersection The crowd watching the Acrobatics show. They seemed rather stoic. Hoan Kiem Lake in the old quarter of Hanoi And if you're a fan of jerky, poor quality video check out the links below for sights and sounds of the festivities. Happy New Year! Acrobatics Show Video Concert Video

18th November 2010 Today Aaron and I have seen more Ankgorian temples than you could think possible! We left our hotel about 6am, rented bicycles and headed north, towards Angkor. The site is named Angkor, meaning "capital city" as it was once the capital of the Khmer empire. "Khmer" is the dominant ethnic group in modern and ancient Cambodia. On route Aaron and I both purchased tickets which allow entry on any 3 days within the next week. After having visited Angkor National Museum yesterday we were excited to see the monuments in real life. We decided to begin with the temples on the "grand circuit" today and build up to the great spectacle of Angkor Wat, thought by some to be the 8th wonder of the world! The route we cycled skirted around the edge of Angkor Wat, but the trees blocked our view, so the suspense was maintained. The first stop on our tour was at Prasat Kravan, constructed in the early 10th century during King Harshavarman I's reign o...

16th November 2010 Today we got a bus through Cambodia from Kompong Cham to Siem Reap (meaning Siamese defeated), where were met by a frenzy of tuk-tuk drivers. Our guidebook is always warning us to avoid touts and mostly we follow their advice as there are a lot of scams. But this time when we were met by Mr Sree we took a chance and viewed his hotel. We lucked-out with a nice, quiet, reasonably priced hotel on the edge of the city. In the evening we walked into town which was buzzing with people everywhere. We haven't seen so many westerners since we left Europe. The streets were lined with bars and restaurants, each stylised with different themes. It was very surreal after cycling around the Cambodian countryside yesterday. It felt almost like walking down sixth street in Austin, except there were a lot of motorised tuk-tuks and the restaurant staff were khmer. We found a restaurant with a show of traditional Khmer dancing, including A...

We started our cycle tour of Kompong Cham by leaving Kompong Cham We've discovered that visiting a Wat is a prerequisite for any excursion in southeast Asia The countryside at last A commuter Another wat Jean's fan club. Kids in Camobida shout "Hello!" rather than Khmer greeting which is "Johm reap sua!" Social networking old school style These guys helped with some Khmer pronunciation. I gave them my email address and told them I'd send them this picture when they got an email account. You roll the dice when frequenting a street vendor. Sometimes it's fried crickets and sometimes it's ice cream. This time it was ice cream served in a baguette. Back to the Mekong

14 November 2010 The rain pounds on the metal roof. Jean and I stopped off in Kampong Cham, Cambodia in an effort to get off the tourist trail. Ironically, we've spent most of today camping out in the wifi of an expat restaurant overlooking the Mekong. There are Blues Brothers and Apocalypse Now movie posters on the wall and Johnny Cash playing in the background. The official currency of Cambodia is the riel trading at approximately 4000 rield to the dollar. However, the US dollar is the accepted (and preferred) medium of exchange. Riel isn't even an available option at most ATMs. I made a withdrawal last night after getting in and got two crisp $100 bills. The proprietor of our $5 a night guesthouse was not especially pleased to make change. In an interesting twist there are no US coins in circulation. Instead, for change less than a dollar, riel is used. It you were to buy something that cost $1.75 with two one dollar bills, the shopkeeper would give you a 1000 riel...

13 November 2010 Before leaving America, Jean and I stockpiled a stack of one dollar bills which I've been carting around in a white envelope. They proved useful today on the Lao/Cambodia border. I'd heard about the widespread corruption in Cambodia and was not looking forward to experiencing it first hand. There's a group called Transparency International that tracks global corruption. Cambodia's government ranks 166 out of 180 countries. It started on the Lao border checkpoint. First, it probably didn't help that Jean and I rolled up in a bus full of foreigners. We queued at the spartan exit visa booth. Getting to the front of the line I encountered a surly man behind the glass. “Exit stamp $2,” he said. Upon inquiry he explained in his terse fashion that the $2 was a fee imposed for the inconvenience caused by the crossing of the border on a Saturday. I paid the man and got my passport back with an exit stamp. Next, I walked along the road the 100 meters ...

12 November 2010 "Sah-bah-dee!" We're now on the well paved tourist trail as evidenced by the loss of our rock star status. No looks of amazement on the faces of the locals, no little kids sprinting from half a mile away away with their lungs bursting “Sah-bah-dee!” The denizens of Don Khon seem quite accustomed to the pale, tank top wearing transients who share their island. This is our fourth day in the Si Phan Don (Four thousand Islands) archipelago. A passenger truck Si Phan Don, located in the widest part of the Mekong river, is a vast collection of islets and sandbars. It's in the southern tip of Laos just north of Cambodia. Four days ago we arrived from Pakse in the back of a passenger truck (Note: A passenger truck, not bus) and took a ferry to the largest island, Don Khong. Our original intention had been to go directly to Don Khon (I guess with four thousand islands to name, it's difficult coming up with distinctive names). However, there was w...

November 6, 2010 “You like Scorpion?” “I don't know. What's Scorpion?” Jean and I motored back into Pakse a few days ago and checked back in at our old haunt, the Lankham. We even got our old room, number 444. Since then we've been doing internet/computer stuff: looking for jobs, uploading pictures, blog writing and Facebook stalking. This morning I had a few errands to run. On my way back from the post office I noticed a salon. My last haircut had been in Sri Lanka a couple of months ago and I was getting pretty shaggy. I sauntered across the street and was directed by a plump, elderly woman to take a seat on a plastic chair outside the shop on the sidewalk. The salon was the size of a single car garage and consisted of two barber's chairs, a table and a shelving unit with a disproportionately large stereo system. A teenage girl was lounging across one of the chairs. The other was occupied by a young girl getting her hair cut. The hairdresser was a young Lao...

And in case if you're wondering if they know it's Christmas time over here...

4th November 2010 Waterfall #8 – Tad Fane Dangerous! Read the sign posted at the end of the viewing platform which provided a vista of the highest waterfall yet, Tad Fane. The platform was part of a developed resort, which overlooked the unbelievably massive twin falls from across a valley. The falls where so high that the water appeared to be pouring into a bottomless pit. This morning Aaron and I had come a short drive from Sihom Sabaidy guesthouse, then strolled out onto the easy access viewing platform. Somehow this didn't seem enough of a challenge to warrant such a rewarding view. Danger being my middle name (or so Aaron teases me!) we set off on the trail that lead steeply down into the woods behind the sign that read “Dangerous!” We hoped to get a closer view from the foot of the falls, but the track descended away into the valley, getting further from the falls and eventually the trail was consumed by the undergrowth. Back at the resort Aaron and I found a not...