Pictures!

You wanted pictures!!! Well dammit yer gonna have em... well 2 pictures anyway! Took a while to get the guy to scan the pictures properly, but I think I can get a few more done later today or tommorrow...

Ive uploaded 2 pictures of me in Cambodia bearing some mean weapons... this was about 1 hour before I went to Choeng Ek (the Killing Fields) and it was lucky that I decided to go to the shooting range first, because it would have been disturbing to say the least if Id done it in reverse.

To see the pictures: click on photo gallery and they are on page 2. Or choose "Cambodia" from the main page and they should appear on the right.

Im off now to take a tour of Hue city on a lil moped.. more later...

much later...

Well that was an "interesting" day... It started out a sweltering 35 C and I took a trip around the Forbidden City (where the Vietnamese emperor used to live) which was quite enjoyable despite the fact I was melting! Apparently when it was in use the only other men allowed into the city (which is surrounded by a moat and kilometres of wall) were eunuchs who would pose no threat to the numerous concubines and wives of the emperor. Lucky guy!

After a few hours I headed off to Thien Mu pagoda about 3 km out of town to see the temple where the famous monk Thich Quang Duc lived. This was the monk who burned himself alive in the 60s to protest the vietnamese governments Diem regime which restricted the rights of Buddhist monks. At the back of the temple you can even see the Austin car that brought the monk to the location of his self-immolation!

Then the rains came... suddenly out of nowhere they smashed down for the next 2 hours or so until around 5pm, which meant I was pretty much stranded at the temple for 2 hours!! I got talking to a few monks during that time.. but it sorted messed up the rest of the day...

Im gonna probably spend tommorrow travelling around some Royal Tombs near Hue and decide whether to head to Hanoi (as most people are still doing) or head southwards...