Honda Super Cub 90 Super Deluxe

We're fully mobile again! The fleet in Cambodia now consists of a shiny old Honda Super Cub 90 "Super Deluxe" as well as the two second hand wobbly Chinese bicycles. So now we're fit to take on the Lexus SUVs, Hummers and Bentleys on the streets of Phnom Penh.

Apparently over 60 million of these little machines have been made since 1958 with 50, 70, 90 and 100cc models. As we're two "heavier" foreigners, we've opted for the 90cc version, complete with plastic weather fairing and retro-fitted front basket and shopping bag hooks.

Here's a video of Celine test-driving in the yard of the Lycee Rene Descartes, her new school. Ready to hit the road!

Arrival

Arrival in Cambodia... it's different. Busy weeks of searching for a new home, orientation, organising transport, Visas and so on. Slowly getting there after just over two weeks, and hopefully we'll have motorised transport back by tomorrow!

As I said, it's different here... it's certainly not as developed as Hanoi or other cities in Vietnam, and the gap between rich and poor is certainly more evident here in Phnom Penh. Not so much traffic about on the roads as Hanoi or Saigon (by a long way), but more extreme - plenty of small motos about, and also plenty of black Lexus SUVs, Land Cruisers, Hummers and Mercedes too... of course you see these in Vietnam too, but really that's the car of choice here, with little in between them and the humble Honda Super Cub. And there's paperwork too for buying and selling a bike, and they're expensive when compared to Vietnam.. so for the time being we're trying a new sustainable lifestyle with cheap wobbly Chinese bicycles to get about on - fine really, but will need motorised transport for work, if nothing else than not to arrive dripping in sweat.

Visas are a little more complicated too, to get our official visas takes four steps, and three pages in our passports. 1. Arrival on Tourist/Business Visa at airport, valid 1 month and single entry. 2. Fill out paperwork requesting work and courtesy Visas via the French Embassy, wait a week and recieve a blue letter addressed to border immigration. 3. Take a bus to Bavet, exit Cambodia, run in the pouring rain 500 metres into Vietnam, enter, exit, run back to Cambodia immigration, submit passports and blue letters, receive work and courtesy visas (free), valid three months, single entry. Return to Phnom Penh. 4. Fill out another form requesting a year long visa extension with multiple entry, then send to the department of immigration (which is open between the hours of 9am and 10am daily), wait two weeks, and hopefully have our
passports back... We're at the final stage now, fingers crossed for a
safely returned passport!

Found a decent apartment after looking at no less than 23... many without windows and so dark, with heavily barred windows. Moving in on 4th September and now staying in an interim place... bright enough but still with the prison bars! Waiting the arrival of our things from Hanoi too, which are winding their way here by ship, set to arrive on 4th September too at Phnom Penh port, hopefully a rapid liberation will follow!

So, Celine's been to school and met some colleagues and I'm in the process of organising meetings for work and so on, and have already ordered the new business cards. Will likely head to the coast this week sometime, a bit of exploration before work begins.

Onward and upward!

Un an deja...de retour a Hanoi (du 24 juillet au 8 aout)

Et voila la boucle est bouclee! Deja un an que nous avons quitte Hanoi et nous voici de retour pour deux semaines avec pour mission de demenager nos affaires laissees chez Nicole et Viviane! Cela fait bizarre un an apres...mais arrives a Noibai Airport, on retrouve vite les memes odeurs, la meme humidite et la chaleur! On avait oublie ce que c'etait vu qu'on a plus souvent eu froid que trop chaud lors de notre tour du monde!
Nous logeons tout pres de notre ancien quartier, Nghi Tam, dans une guesthouse geree par le restaurant-bar Daluva. On a quasiment la maison pour nous tous seuls! Vue sur le petit lac et le Sheraton. Nous avons retrouve notre epicerie du coin toujours tenue par Thanh et sa femme, super contents de nous revoir, puis nos xe oms (moto-taxi locale). Hanoi change: notre maison n'est plus de ce monde, ils construisent des apparts a la place, la route le long du lac de l'ouest avance a grand pas, ca construit et ca detruit a tout-va, nos petits restos ont pour beaucoup demenage, certains se sont rapproches des quartiers d'expats! Mais surtout la circulation est devenue insupportable! Apparemment, en un an, le nombre de voitures a triple ici! Malgre cela, on a tres vite repris nos marques quoique les premiers jours on etait plutot content de rester dans notre chambre au frais, a la clim!

Puis nous avons retrouve quelques copains d'Hanoi, beaucoup etant en vacances de part le monde. Et ce monde est vraiment petit car on a retrouve a notre guesthouse Todd et Kim rencontres en decembre sur l'Ile de Paques et il se trouve que Kim est la soeur du proprio! Small world! Et hier soir on a retrouve Philippa, la soeur de Mike, de passage a Hanoi pour une soiree, court stopover, pour elle et Lorraine une copine, avant d'aller visiter le Laos. Au programme: shopping, petit resto et bars dans les rues animees de la capitale. Enfin, Mike a vendu sa moto. Notre copain Achim devait la vendre pendant notre tour du monde mais personne n'avait voulu de ce magnifique bolide, on a donc pu en profiter encore pendant deux semaines avant de la laisser a son nouveau proprietaire!

Cote demenagement, mission accomplie: nos malles ont quitte la maison de Nicole et Jean-Charles, vont voyager un peu par bateau avant d'arriver a notre prochaine destination: Phnom Penh, au Cambodge! Et oui il faut bien se remettre un peu au boulot histoire de pouvoir renflouer les caisses et qui sait...refaire un tour du monde dans quelques annees! Donc pour moi c'est le retour au lycee, cette fois-ci le lycee francais Rene Descartes a Phnom Penh. Une nouvelle ville, un nouveau pays d'Asie, l'aventure continue mais sera un peu plus sedentaire...quoique c'est bien connu, les profs, on est toujours en vacances, alors voyager...on n'a pas fini! Quand on en a pris gout, on ne peut plus s'arreter!

Enfin avant de quitte la capitale vietnamienne, dernier petit resto francais au Cafe des Arts: escargots, steak tartare (une merveille!) et crepes suzette...le bonheur! On s'est regale! Si vous etes de passage a Hanoi, on vous le recommande vivement. Et si comme nous vous adorez le steak tartare, y'a meme la recette sur le site du resto http://www.cafedesarts.com/. Merci Gerard, si on n'en trouve pas un aussi bon a Phnom Penh, on pourra se le cuisiner nous -memes!

Enfin, comme nos aventures autour du monde ne s'arretent pas la, on continuera bien sur le blog au Cambodge, mais en attendant la suite, merci a tous ceux qui nous ont suivis a travers le monde et un grand merci tout special a Nicole et Viviane pour avoir garde nos malles pendant cette annee. A bientot! Bonnes vacances a tous et Chao Vietnam... Choum reap suor Cambodia!

Vietnam... a year on

On the JAL flight, over the seas and mountains to Vietnam... so many thoughts and emotions... how is it going to feel when we're back in Vietnam? Yes, there's all the things we want to do straight away when we're back... have a really good bowl of Pho with loads of chilli... Bun Cha with extra pork fat, steak tartare at Cafe des Artes.. catch up with friends... what will the traffic be like??? will the noise be tolerable??? will the bike work and so on.

Landed in Noi Bai, and exit the plane, smells of Vietnam. Moist carpets and humidity in the airport. Visa on arrival for the first time - entering one of the last bastion of oppressive communism - if you believe the anti-Vietnam propoganda, and met by the Visa officials, who seem to be playing a game of "catchy-kissy" in the Visa office. One young guy in a uniform sees me, and grabs his hat, tries to put on a serious face and stop giggling, takes our passports and tells us "just a minute sir", then chases his female colleague around the room... in a minute our visas are ready, and a polite Xin Chao (responded by a "Welcome to my country") to the immigration officer... 25 minutes after landing, we're in a taxi to downtown. Blurting out my first Vietnamese utterances in a year, learn that it' been very hot here the past month, lots of power cuts and floods too, though the weather is getting better, oh yes, and apparently I speak Vietnamese like a Vietnamese... Nice complement, though I can't remember how to say "close to" or "near by" in Vietnamese, all I can think of is "mas circa", which may, or may not be Spanish.

That aside, we arrive, almost directly, to our guesthouse, and our two week mission - locate and move our stored "things", select a shipping company, regroup our finances, and push through... move to Phnom Penh and begin the new adventure and chapter, whilst catching up with some old friends and (for me) finding some work!

And it's a small world too. Staying at the Daluva guesthouse... turns out that the manager of Daluva is the brother of Kim - Kim and Todd who we met in Easter Island, and who are coming to stay in the Guesthouse too while we're staying here... Really, a small world!

Tomorrow's the big day, packing up our things with the moving company... and it's fitting that we're leaving for Phnom Penh on the 8th August, we left exactly a year ago... on our flight to Sydney (with Mike and Hang), to meet our delayed flight to Auckland! How time flies... make the most of it, you've only got one time!!!! To be continued in Cambodia!