Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand

[Jake]

It's a bit borderline posting this in the cred section, but there were creds, so heh.

I went with my uncle again, so I was quite restricted cred-wise, and only bothered with the 'major' parks... parks with just 1 kiddie coaster were out of the question <///3.


We flew to Ho Chi Minh City first, connecting in Dubai. The flight departed from Birmingham on Saturday 13th. Flying from Birmingham is so convenient and fab.

Totes spited Iraq, for some reason?

By the time we arrived in Ho Chi Minh it was quite late on the Sunday, so we just had a wander, went to a couple of bars and went to bed. Technically this was day 1, but it doesn't really count.






Day 1

We ended up drinking quite a lot on the first night, so didn't bother getting up until about 10:00. The only reason I booked the hotel was the fab pool, so we headed there for a dip first.

Once we'd dried off we got a taxi to a temple somewhere in the city. If I was on my own I probably wouldn't bother with these, but I do find them interesting when I'm actually there.

The first one had some cool trees outside

Shroom would give this temple... 1 communist star.

HI

Love a bit of incense <3

The pots were made up of loads of bits of broken pottery / plates which was quite cool, as was the creature on the wall, and the detail on the roof...

No idea what these are, but they're fab?

We then walked down the road to another Temple, which had some fab crappy animal rights.

These turtles were FIGHTING for the tiny bit of dry land in their enclosure... and probably nobbing eachother in the process.

This one was a complete dump, made even worse by the awful roof they've built over it which attacts birds. Loads of bird crap, loads.

We quickly exited and made our way to the Zoo / Botanical Garden, which has a cred.

I didn't see the point in taking photos of bored animals in cages, but they had a Bonsai section which was really good.

... and obv, the cred.

+1

After the acquisition we walked (or maybe got a taxi, it's already slipped my mind) back to central to have a look at the post office. I was told it was really ornate and fabulous, but it was a bit of a let down. I guess for a post office it's quite extravagant, but I didn't really get it.

The area around it was nice, though.

I had this for dinner, not normally a big rice fan but it was fairly decent!

... and this was opposite <3

Oh, and the terrifying twosome.

 

[Lofty]

Those turtles are definitely knobbing one another, you're correct.

Can't wait to see the next part

 

[JamesB]

Ah this is bringing back memories from when I traveled to HCMC (I also did Thailand too, so looking forward to that part) I went to the zoo with a friend and ended up not getting that cred. I personally quite like the post office. Did you go to the Pho 24/7 restaurant chain or whatever its called, they do amazing bowls of Pho, I miss that so much. Whats your overall impression of HCMC? Some bits are really nice whist some of it is really run down I thought. Anyway, looking forward to that next bit!

 

[Jake]

^ Nah, didn't notice that chain. Ben told me about a chain too, could be the same one? Can't remember!

The city was pretty much what I expected really... typical big city in a developing country with some really modern, expensive parts and some grubby parts. To be fair, the grubby parts were less grubby than I thought they would be!

Why didn't you get the cred? If I'm honest I wasn't planning on going there because they only had one, but we just kind of stumbled on the zoo and ended up going in, THEN I remembered they had a cred once I saw some kiddie rides and started scouting for it.


Day 2

This was a complete culture day, starting with the Bitexco financial tower (the biggest skyscraper in the background of the photo of me in the pool). The hotel was very central so we walked there

This is taken from the Observation deck, you can just see the rooftop pool of the hotel (behind the yellow "Nikon" sign, might need to click on the photo to make it bigger).

They're just starting to develop this section, apparently it used to be populated but it was a dump, so they kicked everybody out.

After the tower it was time for more temples. I loved these incense coils, despite them looking like something you'd light in a hotel room to kill mosquitoes.

All the temples had loads of tat, and loads of fish.

Typical backstreet

Another temple, with a weird roof.

This water was like something you'd see on a Blackpool dark ride. Gross.

These were fab <3

I love a good dragon wrapped around a post. Plenty more of these to come

Ok... this is the last temple of the day, I promise.

So much avian influenza right there.

More fab coils <3

I was lying. THIS is the last one...

They also had a giant turtle, I thought I'd taken a photo of it but appaza not.


Next part... more creds!

 

[Ben]

Nah, Jollibee is the fab chain I recommended and you didn't bother with <//3 It's just burgers and chicken but it's fab.

I liked Ho Chi Minh as well, although we weren't there for long. Vietnam in general is just fierce.

 

[Jake]

Day 3

This was our last full day in Vietnam, and the day we did the 2 major parks in the area. Luckily I'd checked the websites of the parks a couple of days before, and read that one of them was shut the day before. We were originally going that day, so missed out on a lot of potential spite.

We got a taxi first to Suôí Tiên Park - it was about 40 minutes or so, and cost about £6.

The park was DEAD. Like, literally dead.

First cred was 'Secret of Sorcerer Forsest', which was also known as 'Enchantment of Witch Forest', 'Mystery of Wizard Forest' and god knows how many other names, depending on which sign you were looking at.

It was a powered dragon coaster in a shed, but was actually quite fab. It had a walk through section first, then you got the cred at the end. The theming inside was pretty decent considering.

Actually, the theming in general at the park surprised me. I was expecting it to be a complete **** hole, but the scale of the theming, although on the tacky side, was impressive.

They had a Harry Potter knockoff... didn't bother though

They also had LOADS of these gross fish spas. I saw at least 3 of them in the park.

There was supposed to be another kiddie coaster here but there was no mention of it on the map, and I couldn't find it anywhere. Looking at RCDB it looks like it's in this indoor section:

But, it definitely didn't exist. Spite!

It wasn't getting any busier so we headed for the biggest coaster in the park, High Speed Roller Coaster. There was a minimum requirement of 4 people so we had to hang around for about 20 minutes to ride. It was so quiet that I was worried nobody would come.

It's kind of like the Millennium cred at Fantasy Island, but without the inversions.

It was extremely slow and didn't do anything, which was lucky, as the restraints didn't work.

Here's some more stuff we didn't bother with. These </////3.

Drop tower

Creds aquired, it was time to jump in a taxi to the next park, Đầm Sen Park. This was on the opposite side of the city to the hotel, so it took a lot longer... well over an hour. £12.

The entrance was rather uninspired.

When we arrived we were parched, so stopped for a beer at one of their restaurants. It was absolutely heaving.

They had tanks outside with various creatures, all of which were on the menu.

Turtles!

The powered cred was stumbled upon first, but there was no sign of activity.

However the big water melon cred nearby was open, so I nabbed it. Some gross Vietnamese fag and his hag took a selfie with me at this point.

This park was weird, some parts were really nice...

... and others were just plain cheap.

They had a huge aviary...

... and a fab looking haunted house.

The spite continued when we got to the park's major coaster 'Roller Coaster'

Nooooooooo

The worst

I tried translating the sign and I think it said it was shut from the 2nd to the 6th. Not sure if it meant days or months, but either way it has over run.

Oh I was foaming at the mouth.

It was in the arse end of the park as well - if I'd have known I wouldn't have bothered.

Oh well, we headed to the last coaster, the Golden Horse.

There was nobody about but I eventually found somebody and got the cred. I was NOT leaving this dump with only 1.

On the way out we overshot the exit to give the Dragon another try. It had miraculously opened so we GOTTHECRED.

3/4 wasn't too horrific in the end.


Before heading back into the city centre we popped to a nearby temple for a bit of cultch.

The gong/bell/whatever guy looked so, so bored.

Right outside were these really old towers

Once we'd got back to town, faffed and had dinner, I went up to the roof of the hotel to get some photos.

So fab!

 

[caffeine_demon]

Ahhh - the joy of "closed" parks

well - even the sign has a four letter word on it!!.... :roll:

 

[Jake]

well - even the sign has a four letter word on it!!.... :roll:

I don't get it <///3. Do you mean Phuc? Lol.


Day 4

We had to get up at putrid o'clock for our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. We flew with the flag carrier Cambodian Angkor Air, which was only established in 2009.

The flight was fab - it was less than an hour, so the seatbelt signs were only off for about 10 minutes. It was empty as well.

The hotel was absolutely amazing - free airport pick up, free laundry, one free meal, free minibar every day and your free personal tuk tuk driver for your whole stay. Well, it's all included in the price, but it's stuff they could easily charge extra for if they wanted to.

When we arrived we abused the free laundry service and headed straight out for some culture. Although the pool looked tempting.

View from the room

The main (well, only) thing to do in/around Siem Reap is the Angkor area. It was once a huge city, but as most buildings were made of degradable materials only the temples remain. Just for an idea of the scale of the area, have a look at this:

http://goo.gl/maps/DbYuu

The done thing is to do Angkor Wat itself for sunrise, which we had missed, so we opted for Angkor Thom, a complex just to the north of it. The Bayon is the centrepiece of this, but the tuk tuk driver dumped us somewhere nearby and we wandered back towards it from there.

There isn't really loads to say about anything so I'll just post some pics.

We saw this through the trees, so headed over. This one was one of my faves actually...

At this point one of these **** bit me. It could have been worse, I could have been the worm.

The path ended up here, at which point we hung a right and walked back towards the Bayon.

It's fab.

The detail is amazing

By this point we had been out for about 3 hours, but as a result of the early start and the heat getting to us, we called it a day.

 

[Ben]

Angkor Wat is absolutely gorgeous, I love it.

I'd love to go back one day when I'm not stupidly hungover <3

 

[caffeine_demon]

well - even the sign has a four letter word on it!!.... :roll:

I don't get it <///3. Do you mean Phuc? Lol.

Of course - I'm surprised you haven't figured out my sense of humour!!

 

[Jake]

Day 5

On our second day in Cambodia we decided to do the 'big circle' route around Angkor, avoiding Angkor Wat itself until the following day for the sunrise.

We couldn't find the Elephants Terrace the day before, then realised we were standing right on top of it, so started back in the general area we left off.

Angkor Thom has a North, South, East and West Gate. Think this was the West one.

The moat

From the back/inside

This is the Elephant Terrace... it used to be a huge building, but only the base is left. It's really, really fab though.

We then exited through the East gate and visited the next place, the name of which has escaped me.

This one was a bit more rustic, which I really liked.

The next stop was Neak Pean, about 15 minutes down the road. This was probably my favourite as the walk over the water was stunning.

The centrepiece

My camera started dying at this point because I stupidly didn't charge it from the day before and the battery life is terrible. To be fair, it did say it was full in the morning. Lies! As a result I was quite conservative with photos, to avoid it going completely before the end of the day.

Next we went here

...and the final stop of the day was Ta Prohm, which is famous for being overgrown. This is actually what all the temples were like when they were rediscovered, but luckily they decided to keep this one how it was. It was also used (amongst other places in the area) as a filming location for Tomb Raider.

Next part... Angkor Wat.

 

[Nic]

Oh wow! That whole area looks amazing! It really does look like some brilliantly themed park... but obviously a million times better as its real. So fab <3

 

[Jake]

^ The theming really was amazing - they went to such effort. It must have gone really over budget and thus they didn't have any money left for creds. Shame really.

Day 6

This was our last full day in Cambodia and we'd saved the Angkor Wat sunrise for it - the alarm at 04:30 was somewhat rude, but 30 minutes later we were on our Tuk Tuk in the pitch black on our way there.

It was really pretty, definitely worth getting up early for.

The driver said he would meet us at the back entrance, so we quickly walked through. I didn't bother taking many photos as we were coming back again later.

The one in the blue was fit as.

Gross cobwebs, eugh.

Oh, there were also Monkeys.

We then went back to the hotel for breakfast, freshened up and headed back out to do Angkor Wat properly.

The moat and surrounding greenery were lush. It doesn't come across as fab in photos, unfortunately.

Some stuff just inside

You can go up to the top

We exited the same way we did earlier, and moved onto the next place.

Got some more moat pictures <3

Next one

Skinny cow

Next place

The steps were REALLY steep, and you couldn't put your hand on them for too long as they were so hot.

They were doing quite a bit of building work on this one

The final stop of the day was a temple near Angkor Wat, up a huge hill. It's apparently popular at sunset, so we were the only people there <3

... and that's pretty much it from Cambodia.

 

[_koppen]

Oh damn, this really makes me wanna go back to Cambodia right away!

 

[Ben]

I love Cambodia, it's such a beautiful area round there.

Excited to read about Bangkok, so excited to go again next month <3

 

[Jake]

Day 7

When we got to Siem Reap Airport and went to check in for our flight to Bangkok, about 300 Indians on a massive tour group turned up. I'm not sure if they overbooked the flight, or just wanted us away from them (we were the only people not in their group on the entire flight), but we ended up getting moved to Bangkok Air. It was one of these

It was fab because we had lunch included, which we wouldn't have had on our original flight. It got there earlier, too.

We got to the hotel at about 14:00 and chilled out for a bit - the room was stunning!

We hadn't really planned anything and hadn't bothered looking where anything was, so we ended up getting the Skytrain somewhere and then got on a boat.

That's as far as the photos went, so I might as well post the next day as well.

Day 8

We were planning on doing the palace originally, but when we woke up and saw the overcast weather we thought it would be a good day to get Siam Park City over and done with. Half an hour in a taxi later we were at the beautiful entrance

I thought it was a bit of a rip off. £10 if you're a Thai national, if not, £20! Dirty, evil, robbing bastards.

Looking back at the entrance

There were more people about than at the parks in Vietnam, but it was still very quiet

The Boomerang is just inside the entrance so I nabbed that first.

Quite enjoyed it actually... definitely one of the least offensive ones.

Next cred was Grand Canyon Express, the slowest and most boring powered cred in this solar system.

The third and final (non SBNO) cred was the SLC. Unlike the Boomerang, this was one of the ultimate worst. The extra helix just prolonged the pain!

The observation tower was just there, and had aircon, so we did that next. They're always a good way to get photos of everything without having to bother getting them as you go around!

The spiteful SBNO cred

There was also a little Intamin Drop tower, which I would have done, but it was shut </3

The Top Spin was also shut. Meh.

In the distance were some more closed creds </3

The Log Flume looked quite fab, but didn't open until we were about to leave and randomly had a huge queue, so we didn't bother.

There was also a water park which looked a bit sorry. It has a huge wave pool, but not much in the way of slides!

This was quite fab though, knock off Jurassic Park ride complete with one of the movies playing in the queue area.

There was also this. Not sure what it actually was.

We were only there for about an hour and a half but it was more than enough. I don't know why but I was expecting more from the place... in reality, it was bordering on depressing!

 

[Jake]

Pretty sure nobody gives a flying, flickering piece of faeces, but I'm going to try and finish this.

Day 9

Culture day, first stop being the Palace in the city centre.

Not a lot to say about it really. It was pretty, but as you'd expect, full of tourists.

Chillan

Outside the main courtyard area, there is some more pretty stuff.

Review of the palace: Overpriced, sterile, touristy, hot but pretty nevertheless.

We then walked down the street, via this park

to the temple of the reclining Buddha. Quite a literal name, as it is actually a giant Buddha, casually reclining.

It's HUGE!

No arse though.

The rest of the complex was a bit grubby. I also moaned about the palace being sterile, so maybe I can't be pleased.

Loads of white people, loads.

Meh, at least it wasn't heaving here.

That was pretty much it for the day. Also got a couple of pics by the river, not exactly relevant to anything...

 

[Ben]

Haha, omg, that reclining Buddah is so tacky.

Bangkok is fab but such an odd city.

 

[Jake]

Day 10

The trip had been pretty full on up to this point, so we decided to have a lazy day on our penultimate day.

This involved chilling at the pool

and that was pretty much it until the evening, when we got the lift up to the bar on top of the hotel.

I took loads of photos because it was fab!

There was nobody there until it got dark, but I wanted to get some pics in the sunlight too.

This is gross, but heh

Day 11

On our last day we hit up a final bit of culture

There were lanterns

Lots of them

Some other stuff

And a solid gold Buddha, which was in here

See what I mean

It's very gold

We got our shoes back

Saw a big reptile

Went on a boat

Then saw a 100ft tall Buddha

That looked a bit stoned

and had massive feet

that people put stuff on

Then we bumped into Jade

and a flowery elephant

The royals were there too

This was very European

As was this

This, not so much

Finally we got the metro back to the hotel

Before jumping on an A380 to start our journey home. Well, that was technically Day 12.

Thanks for reading!

 

[BBH]

Ah, the A380, with its stupid width and 3 jetways. <3

Fantastic report, I especially liked all the Buddhas scattered throughout Bangkok. Not a common report, so it was interesting to see.