Chilling in Da Nang :)

Chilling in Da Nang

During my initial couple of days in Da Nang, I went back to the hotel that I had stayed at before, they were happy to see me but told me they were booked up. I told the receptionist I wanted a room for a month and she said she'd take another look. She went on the computer and I watched her move future booking around on the screen. Took her a little over 10 minutes to arrange to have a room for a month for me. The stay began on the 17th, $8.60 per night ($258. for the month).

I set a hopeful budget for myself of half a million dong per day ($21.50), the first 6 days I stayed within budget, but splurged last night and exceeded it by almost double. A small group wanted to go up to the Dragon Bridge to watch the Head of the dragon spew fire and water that only happens at 9pm on weekend nights. So after dinner and drinks at The Amazing Taco, we caught a taxi up to the bridge (about 3 miles). The area around the head of the dragon was packed with people and food carts.

So we grabbed a beer and got into position to view the show. It was cool, lasted about 10 minutes. After the show, we decided to walk across the bridge to check out the nightlife on the west side of the river before catching a taxi back to the Filling Station Bar. Fun night, I thought I got the fire on video but found out I didn't, but I did get video of the water spray. It will be included on my photo album. 

 I'll describe my typical day in Da Nang in my nex blog post, got to save something to talk about next blog😏.

Goodbye Cambodia, Good morning Vietnam!

BACK IN DA NANG
Arrived back in Da Nang today. My 3rd time flying into Da Nang, every time I feel more at home. The hotel I stayed at previously was booked, so I booked one close. Still a nice place. About 5 floors, 5 rooms per floor. A/C, Cable TV, hot water, elevator, 5-minute walk to the beach. $10. a night! 3 nights here, and will be checking on a monthly rate. I mean damn, I'm at the beach, in a clean town, I can rent a hotel room (serviced, towels, bedding every day if I want) for under $300 a month! Everything I need is within walking distance! I am thinking I'm going to spend at least a month chilling here (and saving money). I had planned on going to Thailand this trip but after Da Nang, I'm not so sure.

 Tight, but clean with hot water and good lighting, plus room has a mini-fridge for my beer ;).

Kampot was OK, way better than Phnom Penh. I had expected Cambodia to be cheaper than Vietnam, but that was not the case. And because my budget is small, I have to stay in budget places, The cheapest I could find in Phnom Penh was $12 a night and they weren't great, one place was particularly bad. Noisey, decrepit, and worst of all had bed bugs! Was only there 2 nights, the morning of the first night I noticed bites (5 or 6) on my left inner thigh, I was puzzled as to what caused it, thought that maybe I was uncovered at some point in the night and mosquitos took advantage of the fact I hadn't sprayed repellant that far up my legs. The morning of the second night I woke about 5am with bites (about 10) on the back of my right thigh and googled "bed bugs", sure enough, the bites were bed bugs. I looked at the mattress for signs of them, but couldn't find anything, but they also live in cracks and crevices, and that room had lots of those. They itch like crazy and form welts. I told the manager and showed him the bites, he assured me they would call in an exterminator. Hopefully, my review will warn others to beware.  

My last night in Cambodia I booked a hotel close to the bus terminal, it was the nicest place I had stayed at in Cambodia but was $23 a night. 

The next morning I took the big bus to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. It was $18  for the 7 hours trip including the sign out at the Cambodia border and the check in at immigration at the Vietnam border. The bus was pretty comfortable, A/C and intermittent internet. My seatmate was a nice Italian girl from England. Good conversation and she was just doing a border run so her seat would be empty after the border. She was a teacher there (Phnom Penh) for young kids, she loved the kids, but probably not so much the country.  I flew from HCMC the next morning.

You can only get a 1-month visa into Cambodia unless you have a work permit, I think you can extend it for another month then you have to leave and come back in with another 1-month visa. I had no interest in staying, 20 days were plenty for me. A much more 3rd world country than Vietnam, and much dirtier. Kampot was nicer and more fun than PP, but $10 per night only got you a very basic room without hot water, TV, or A/C. 

I will be updating my Cambodia photo Album and adding captions today or tomorrow and will notify you and provide a link to it. 

In the meantime, I'm walking to the beach 😀

Been in Kampot Cambodia for a week and a day, enjoying it even though booking rooms has been difficult. The Tet (Vietnamese), and Lunar New Year (Chinese) seems to be a reason to take a holiday no matter where you're from in South East Asia. Everything seems booked (in my price range) and even the hostel beds are pretty booked (I'm not sharing a dormitory and bathroom with anyone!).  But I've managed to have a place to stay until the 10th, the end of Lunar New Year.

My first place in Kampot was the Monkey Republic Guesthouse and hostel, guessing 30 beds in shared dorms, and 8-10 budget rooms with no A/C, TV, or hot water, but clean and comfortable. Great restaurant, bar, lovely grounds, great vibe and just far enough out of town to be quiet and chill. Would have booked longer there, but others beat me to it.

Pool room next to bar/ restruraunt, lots of outlets for charging cell phones and laptops.

Main bar/ restaurant, food was good, prices were reasonable! Lots of young backpackers, but I had no trouble talking to anyone if I smiled an said: "How's your adventure going ?"  They are on an adventure, and so am I! 

I managed to book another place for a couple of days closer into town called the "Billabong Guesthouse and hostel, again just 2  nights as they were booked past my dates.  An Aussi themed place.  Not as chill as the Monkey Republic, but they have a pool, decent bar, and a passable restaurant (mostly bar grub).  People not staying here can come to use the pool if they spend over $4. at the bar, otherwise $2.50 per person, still cheap for a decent pool!

Night view from my room.

After my 2 nights there I was having trouble finding another room online, I was sitting at the bar with my laptop and mentioned to the bartender I was not finding anything. A guy that was using the pool had come up to the bar to get a coffee had overheard me and said there might be rooms at the place he was staying "just around the corner", he gave me the name, I looked it up online, they did have a room for a reasonable price,so I booked 3 nights to help get me through the lunar new year holiday.  Then I checked the location, around the corner was 4 1/2 kilometers (2.7 miles), the guy from the pool obviously had a scooter!

Tuk-tuk from town was $4, and vice versa. The place was okay, just so far out of town.

At this point, I've decided to experience the train back to Phnom Penh, stay a couple days there,  then decide my next destination.
The train should be fun, moves at about 30mph will take 5 (+/-) hours. Only runs Sat, Sun, Monday. The Minivan experience coming here helped me decide on the train, The minivan drivers seem to make passing other vehicles their mission in life, even when it's not prudent, or safe.
I'm now back at the Billabong until Sunday and my train trip. I'll tell you more about Kampot in my next blog post.

I felt I should have said more about my experience of Phnom Penh, I was there for 5 nights. I found the city to be congested, dirty, and the closer to the river you got the more dive bars there were, along with the sexpats (both young and old) that keep those bars going. The only good thing (for me) was the price of the beer.

Depending on where you were it could be $.50 to $1.25 for a nice chilled glass of Anchor or Cambodia Beer, both very good! Food was reasonable, I mostly ate Western-style breakfasts, and Indian dinners (what was in my area).  Most of the hotels in my price range (cheaper the better) didn't have elevators and I found my self usually on the upper floors (?) At my age stairs scare the sh*t out of me (help, I've fallen and am dead). 

While in Phnom Penh I did meet some very cool people, and the adventure was quite worth the extra day's spent.  On my second night at the Lone Star Saloon and Guesthouse things got quite interesting at the bar. Turns out as I got to the bar about 8pm the girls behind the bar are drinking shots of Jagermeister. So I ask Tony (owner/manager) down at the end of the bar "Someone's Birthday?  He said "No" and rolled his eyes. Turns out one of the gals doling out the shots is the "Permit holder" of the bar,  The Cambodian who is the owner of the legal permit for the bar, and probably gets a percentage of the profit without actually running the operation. So anyway she's there getting drunk, and exerting her influence. She has a problem with a couple of guys sitting next to me over the bill, she said one guy paid his tab, the other didn't. The first guy said I paid for both of us. I saw him put $40  in the bill thingy. So I told Tony I saw that he paid. (one person couldn't drink $40 worth of  $1.25 drafts by himself and walk). Long story short Tony and permit holder got in a contest over whether they paid, after trying to deal with the PMH who was drunk,  he threw his hand up and said: " I'm outta here".  That didn't end it :) She went outside and raised some hell, pushed someones scooter over,  then came back in and started throwing things, napkin holders then ashtrays, I moved to the way back of the bar to get out of ashtray range. The bar was pretty much empty at that point as no one wanted to get hit by a glass ashtray. She did finally calm down and actually bought me a beer before I hazily found my back upstairs to my room. Was definitely a highlight of my trip to Phnom Penh.  OK so now you know more about my Phnom Penh experience. But of course, I can't tell you everything😆