The curious incident of the Camera in the Night Time

This is the sad tale of Yoni's cameras in our trip to the far east.

"You always think it won't happen to you, but no matter how paranoid you are, how fanatically you guard your equipment, it can happen! Believe me, it CAN happen!!"
(Jonathan Livni Nov-2006)

Konica-Minolta A2
This was my first digital camera ever. I bought it 2.5 years ago and I loved it. I thought I'll use it during the trip and then sell it. I planed to buy a new one only before the next big trip (2-3 years from now).
Alas, it was stolen while we were in northern Vietnam. I placed it between my feet on an inter-city mini-bus ride, but at some point on the way the driver dropped some Vietnamese people in their village, and one of them took it from beneath me when they unloaded luggage from the mini-bus' back door.
We were shocked. For an entire day we ran from place to place, trying to figure out what to do. We hung flyers in Vietnamese language on every wall stating that we were willing to give a reward to whoever will bring it forth. We traced the mini-bus driver, tried to talk to him and offer him money for the camera, but he didn't agree to talk to us. We went from one police station to the next trying to get someone to investigate and to write a report for us. Nothing worked.
When we contacted the insurance we found out that the camera was covered only partially. Only half of the money would be returned, and that only if we could produce a genuine police report. We continued on with the trip, forcing ourselves to carry on. A few days later I had to handover 40$ to bribe some police man in Hanoi to finally give us a signed report, which turned out to be a very clumsy written one (as westerners, you simply can't imagine how clumsy it was).

Nikon D80
The trip from northern Vietnam to southern Vietnam was nice, but not many pictures where taken. We had to suffice ourselves with Tali's Nikon CoolPix 5600, which is small and cute, but after having so much fun with the A2, we had a tough time settling for the point-and-shoot camera.
I started reading articles about cameras on http://www.dpreview.com/ and fantasized about the Nikon D80. I couldn't believe it when I saw it on the shelf in a camera shop in Saigon. Frantically I started to bargain, and within 2 hours I was in the hotel room gasping at the awesome, brand new, shining D80. It was love at first site, and for days we enjoyed it and learnt its intricacies. The peak of our enjoyment was while touring the Unbelievable Angkor temples (see last post). We took more than 400 pictures a day and were exhilarated by the beautiful results.
Alas, on our second night in Bangkok - this happened: Movie Link (See left bottom quadrant, most of the action happens on the last 30 seconds of the clip).
We woke up surprised the alarm clock we set on Tali's cellular phone didn't wake us up. Tali noticed the cellular phone was missing and immediately I said "The Camera !!!"
We got vibrations, and thus began our 3 day journey in Bangkok, trying get out of shock, and try to do something. We went from one police station to another, met the hotel manager, the hotel owner, the Israeli embasador, asked taki drivers, hotel residents anything! anybody!
Nothing worked.
On our last day we discovered a lock problem that exists in all of the hotel's doors: Movie Link (you need speekers + to see it to the end to understand what I'm talking about)
The hotel owner offered us 150$ as compensation, but when we found out about the lock problem, we refused and demanded 1) full compensation 2) that he'll fix the lock problem. He refused.

We're currently in contact with a lawer which specializes in such cases, and she's about to talk with the Thai embasador in Israel. I'll update this post once we'll know how this develops.

If we won't come to an agreement about our two demands, we see it as our responsibility to publish the hotel's name and the story on every tourist internet site that exists.

That's it for now.

== Angkor ==

We decided not to post necessarily in the order we traveled by, but rather by what we feel like posting. And currently, most definitely, it's about the Angkor Temples...

Angkor was a huge empire of the Khmer people, that existed in south-east Asia during the 9th-14th centuries B.C. It controlled most areas of what is currently Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. During this time the god-kings built tremendous temples, libraries, shrines and even a university. These magnificent structures were abandoned during the 15th century only to be rediscovered during early 20th century. They are considered one of the 7 great wonders of the world, and most rightfully so...

Siem Reap is the closest town to the temples which are laid out over a huge area. There are more beggars on the streets here than there are in Vietnam, and more people with half limbs (hands and feet) that come to you and ask for money. It's quite a difficult sight, but you try not to look and keep walking. The injuries were caused by the mines that were placed in the ground during the civil war that took place between 1975 to 1979. People are still getting hurt by these, and it is recommended not to stray off the main roads and paths. Almost 2 million Cambodians were routed and murdered by the communist party, which took control over Cambodia during these years.

After 2 days of traveling between the different temples we are absolutely stunned by the overwhelming magnificance and the enormity of the structures. We thought that after a couple of temples we would get the idea, but we were surprised to discover that each one is unique.

Angkor Thom
Angkor Thom was a really large area of temples, containing several structures:

Ta Prohm
This was the most untouched temple of all the temples. All the others have been, at least partially- restored, taken care of and cleaned of the jungle plants. But this temple was simply taken over by the trees of the forest in an unbelievable way !! It was one of the few places in all our trip where we just gasped at the sights that stood before us. We hope the pictures will explain the feeling: Trees growing on the top of the temple covering the walls, heavy rocks piled at the floor covering hallway passages.

Angkor Wat (a.k.a Angkor What ?!)
This huge temple is royal-like, highly preserved, aesthetic and built on a very large area, with long connecting bridges over the circiling moat. Here we found ourselves climbing a very steep staircase on the main temple, when only at the top we discovered how high and mainly how Steep it was, and we got scared of going down.

Benteay Srei
A surprisingly small temple, with unbelivably impressive intricate stone carvings.

Neak Pean
A temple built on a square island, containing a central lake surrounded by 4 lakes.

Preah Khan
This one is actually a stone university, which looks like a whole city made of stone.

We hope you can feel how powerful the Angkor Temples are through the pictures ... It really is one of the most impressive places we have ever seen...

Here are some pictures of Cambodia's country-side:

== The Journey South 1 ==

After coming back from northern Vietnam we hung around Hanoi for another day, and then started our way southwards. Hanoi is the northern capital and Ho Chi Min City (aka Saigon) is the southern capital, and we planned to travel the way between the cities via the "Open Bus" service. You buy a ticket which allows you to hop cities along the way south, deciding by yourself how much time you'd like to stay at each site. The ticket we bought allowed us to stop at the following cities along the way: Hue, Hoi-An, Nha Trang and Dalat.

Typhoon Xangsane (The Elephant Hurricane)
Traveling south we encountered the devastation caused a couple of days before by one of the biggest storms to hit Vietnam in the past decade. Following are some pictures of the things we saw. Here's a link where you can see the immense floods the typhoon caused (especially around Hoi-An where we visited several days after it past). And here's a satellite photo.

This guy told us that the water came up to where his shoulder is in the picture, and yes that's water hiding his legs:

A sad fact is that the people whose houses were destroyed were the poor, who can't afford a strongly built house:

Hue
Up until 1945 Hue was the imperial capital of Vietnam. On that year, the last emperor of the Nguyen dynasty gave up his reign for the sake of the communist party headed by Ho Chi Min.

Hue was also the site of the bloodiest battles of the 1968 Tet Offensive against the US forces in Vietnam, in which the Viet-Kong in alliance with North Vietnam's army attempted to gain control of the main cities in southern Vietnam. The offensive was a complete surprise to the American forces which up until that point fought the Viet-Kong in the jungles, while the VK used gerilla tactics. The Offensive was a huge success, and Hue was captured for 3.5 weeks, the longest period any city was controlled by the VK.

The main attraction in this city is the Citadel which was built during the 19th century and is surrounded by a 10km perimeter of 4m high wall. Here are several pictures we took during our visit there:

One of many massive gates in the Citadel:

The Citadel's Moat - 4m deep, 30m across, 10km long and filled with water + water plants, oh and Tali's there as well :) :

A Black Dragon that insisted to imitate Yoni:

Yet another Pagoda near the Citadel:

A lovely restaurant we had a nice lunch in:

The first course in the meal - The Spring Roll Peacock:

Lion-Dragon Dancing Festival
Luckily we had the chance to see a festival in Hue and in Hoi An. This certain festival is celebrated once a year in a full moon night around October. The children of the city organize into groups, each giving off a show in the street of dancing Lion-Dragons (a mythological beast). They go around the main city streets, going from shop to shop, and dance to the loud rhythmic sounds of drums. Here are some photos we took (the videos are even better, but you'll have to wait for us to see those...):

The Lion-Dragon controls the Human Race:

The Fat guy controls the Earth, and always appears together with the Lion-Dragon for some reason:

One of the more ugly ones that yoni liked:

== Northen Vietnam 2 ==

Sapa's Love Festival

We came back from the trek just in time to see Sapa's known love festival. Each Saturday night, the naighboring young single villagers come to Sapa to participate in the festival, in what is essentially a tribal dating ritual. Different tribes have different rituals, but all of them include a lot of drinking, and some sort of game between the boys and the girls.

The H'mong tribe's boys play a traditional flute while spinning endlessly around themselvs. Every few minutes they form some pattern in the dance, and every break they take they drink another Rice Wine cup. The girls stand near, and pick the boys by their ability to withstand the dificult and long dance, and still produce a coherent sound with the flute:

The Red Zao tribe's youth stand in two lines - boys against girls. Each turn, one side sings a single note together, and the boys have to guess how to continue the song. It's a complicated competition, and we didn't understand all the rules, but it includes a lot of drinking. Once in a while a boy gives a girl a rice wine glass and vice versa. This can last for a couple of hours, and then (when all are certainly drunk) the boys suggest with whom they would like to continue to the next phase with, and the girls get to pick the boys out. The next phase is not a public one and the ad-hoc couples get some privacy to talk to each other. And then everything starts over and another cycle begins. As we understood, if a couple decides to get married, they can go home together the same night and lose their verginity, the next day the wedding schedule is discussed...

The reason the villagers date in this fashion is quite obvious, once you get to see how they live. Greate mountains seperate the villages, and almost all of their time is consumed by daily chors as working the land, taking care of the small children, cooking, caring for the farm animals etc...

It isn't compulsory to choose someone in the festival. some attend many festivals until they find their companion.

Bac-Ha Market

The tribes are scattered all over Vietnam's north west mountain range. Once a week there's a market in the local central village. Most of the women in the nearby villages come to the market to sell and to buy - everything. Here are some pictures from the intense, very colorfull and quite muddy Bac-Ha market. Most women are from the Flower H'mong tribe.

* Riddle: in which of the following photos Tali appears?

- Northen Vietnam -

One of Vietnam's most interesting places is the northern region. It is the home of many tribes that migrated from China some 500 years ago. When China's emperor tried to unify all of China under one regime, they resisted and fled south to the mountains, of what is now northern Vietnam. This is why these people are different in both looks and culture from the rest of the Vietnamese people.
After a night train to Lau Cai, a small border town which is the gateway between China and Vietnam, we took a mini-bus to Sapa which is the center town of the nearby tribes of north-west Vietnam. The next day we went on a two day trek down the nearby valley to see the H'mong and Red Zao tribes. Here are a few photos of the sights and the people we encountered.

The Valley we trekked:

Rice fields on every peice of land that allows it:

The Trekkers after a long hike:

Our guide Za, which is from the H'mong tribe:

H'mong tribe woman:Red Zao women:

Local children saying "Want something?" \ "Maybe this?" \ "Buy from me?" \ "Buy two?" in perfect disharmony:
H'mong woman teaching her child how to sell souvenirs: A stupid looking animal:
Carla - the swiss girl we've been trekking with:
The simple life (between the kids is a baby bird they have been playing with):

Hi everybody,
This is a blog of our trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand :)
We started the blog a bit late in the trip, but still - here it is. We'll try to keep it updated, but no promises - we're here to have fun!
Love
T&J