A Trip - Literally - Through Southeast Asia

Houseboat
Chau Duc, Viet Nam

All photos by Joyce Black unless otherwise indicated.

Joyce and I escaped from the cold and dark northwest winter and spent the holidays in Southeast Asia. We had been there last year and were eager to return to see the countries we missed the first time.

Kuala Lumpur

Our first stop was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It's a diverse modern city with vibrant Malay, Indian and Chinese culture, and remnants of colonial Europe. This was most evident in Chinatown where you could eat chicken sate from a street vendor on the sidewalk outside of a Hindu pagoda while listening to Christmas carols coming from a Chinese import store.

Borobudur

Our next stop was Java; the largest island in the Indonesian archipelago, to visit Borobudur outside of the town of Yogyakarta. Indonesia, and Java in particular, has had its problems with terrorism, but we found the people in this college town to be very warm and friendly, if a little surprised to see Americans.

Angkor Wat

The next stop was Siem Reap, Cambodia. Siem Reap is the location of the ruins of Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Ta Phrom and the last holdout of the Khmer Rouge. The ruins, mostly from the early part of the last millennium, are spread out around fifty square miles of low-lying jungle. With a guide, we were able to see the tourist "must-sees" such as Angkor Wat at sunset and then other locations off the tourist trail, some of which had been cleared of mines only in the last decade or so. Cambodia is still haunted by the tragic legacy of decades of war as evident by admonishments to stay on the trail and the requests for help from people who have survived the mine blasts.

Sihanookville

Sihanookville is a scruffy little town on the South China Sea with warm water and warmer people. We spent New Years Eve with a bunch of twenty-something Aussies on a remote little island, Koh Rong Saloen. It is two hours off the coast.

Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh is a bustling capital filled with people on motorbikes and lively street scenes. Cambodia is a young country -- having lost most of a generation from the Khmer Rouge atrocities. Visiting the Killing Fields was an emotional experience. About forty percent of the people are between thirteen and eighteen years old. So, we were some of the oldest people around. This can be very nice as Cambodians revere elders. Imagine, however, crossing the street in a sea of motorbikes when nearly half of the drivers are teenagers. "Move slow and steady" - are truly words to live by. We highly recommend visiting Cambodia. We had initially planned on being there for about a week, but instead stayed for three weeks.

Chau Duc

We took a small river barge from Phnom Penh down the Mekong River, a five-hour journey, into Vietnam. This border area has been contested since the1930s and was the site of bloodshed in the late 1970s between the two countries.  We were happy to arrive at Chau Duc, a small town just inside the Vietnamese border  and to settle into a hotel overlooking the town market. This was where our "trip" took a wrong turn.

Wrong Turn

On the second day, Joyce tripped and fell while leaving a store and injured her hip. A couple of locals helped her get back to the hotel, but we were on the third floor but we managed to find a first floor bungalow -- a perfect place to rest and recover. Unfortunately, as the day wore on, it became clear we needed help. Joyce suspected she'd broken her hip and needed surgery. We had purchased travel insurance and decided it was time to visit a recommended clinic not far from our bungalow and arranged for an ambulance -- which turned out to be a converted panel truck -- to transport us. When we arrived we discovered the clinic to be a traveler's worst nightmare with dirty floors, windows wide open, mosquitoes everywhere, electrical wiring hanging from the ceiling, paint peeling off the walls -- you get the picture. After many attempts to convey our situation (no English spoken at the clinic) we used our cell phone to call the insurance company and they brought an interpreter on the line to explain we needed an x-ray, which confirmed a fractured hip and the need for surgery.

We took off, along with a nurse from the clinic, through the jungle on an overnight ambulance ride to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) which took seven harrowing hours on a road filled with pot holes (ouch) and two ferries, one the size of a Seattle ferry and the other a six or seven passenger raft. At sunrise, we arrived at the Franco-Vietnamese hospital just south of old Saigon. We had read that the hospital provided excellent care and were very pleased with the VIP room where we could stay together. Joyce had surgery and nine days later was discharged on crutches. We needed to stick around for a week to have the stitches removed, so we settled into old Saigon in a beautiful hotel to figure out our next move. After a couple of days in town, and more than a few near-death experiences crossing the street,  we decided to postpone the remainder of our Vietnam/Laos trip. We got a doctor's order requiring us to return by business-class, thankfully paid for by our travel insurance. Nice. We returned to our houseboat hauling more silk than Marco Polo and treasuring memories that will last a lifetime.

Our "trip" turned out different than we planned and was cut short by a month, but full of great and unexpected experiences. We met wonderful folks and were reminded daily of how people everywhere are pretty much the same. Being in the hospital gave us a little time off the tourist trail and led to encounters with people we might not have met. I took the opportunity to do some volunteer work while we were in Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City. These led us to people and organizations in (Saigon) I hope to work with in the future. We will definitely return to finish our trip - and of course, continue to get travel insurance!

Dave and Joyce Black are happily recuperating at their houseboat in Willow Cove.