We were up bright and early to have a nice breakfast, enjoy the picturesque views from our guest house and then make our way to the bus station. Luckily for us it was a public holiday and taxis were very hard to come by, so the manageress of the guest house kindly gave us a lift down to our bus. We weren't able to book a VIP bus this time, so we had to make do with the regular one.
As we were waiting an old bus limped into the station and sure enough this was ours. We quickly stowed our luggage and got on board of the bus, it wasn't too bad really, at least the aircon was working which was an improvement over the last one! The journey was good and afforded some lovely views of the stunning countryside, until of course our driver started driving like Jenson Button! Bearing in mind that the road weaves in and out of the mountains on very high, small hairpin bends, this proved pretty hair raising at times. Luckily though, we didn't have any incidents out of 'The Italian Job' and within 5 hours we were back in the hustle and bustle of Kuala Lumpur, with decent temperatures we were now used to. The bus driver didn't drop us off at the bus station, for some unexplained reason, but around a block away, so we had to walk almost a mile through the unpleasant bus station to get to our hotel. Now of course we were complaining that it was too hot!
We had booked ourselves into a different hotel this time called 'Hotel Malaya', on our last visit to KL we had checked the rooms out and they seemed ok, but the real bonus was that breakfast was included, which is indeed a hard thing to find in Chinatown at the best of times!
We checked in and dropped off our bags, it wasn't too bad, just no windows again, but it was only for one night. Our flight back to Bangkok was the following morning, so it was time to get shopping for souvenirs, as this was our last time here.
After a quick lunch, Clare got straight to work and after some very good haggling managed to get herself her much desired Gucci handbag. After the deal was sealed, the stall worker disappeared to get a new one from the warehouse, only much to his embarrassment this one ended being the same in every way, but no Gucci logo! We finally got one with the correct logo and then it was Adams turn for a little shopping, this time for a leather wallet. We had seen a nice one the week before, so we headed off to find it. In no time at all and after some more heavy haggling he had bought his Hugo Boss wallet at a good price. This was again funny as they all had exactly the same wallet but all with different logos stamped on them! The stall owner quickly spotted that Clare had been buying handbags and after asking her the price she had paid, was quick to tell her it was cheaper at his stall, he then pointed at a better quality YSL bag and told her the cheap price he would've accepted. We thanked the man and got on our way. We retired to our hotel to admire all of our shopping, they do sell very good leather goods at the Chinatown market, be it fake or not.
A little later we went out to get ourselves some dinner. It can be very expensive in Chinatown, but we managed to find a great little Chinese stall and enjoyed some great tasting noodles with chicken and Chinese mushrooms. After dinner we decided to have a last look around the market, we went past the stall where Adam bought his wallet and Clare couldn't resist asking about the YSL bag. The owner told us a very hefty price, but we quickly reminded him of the bargain price he told us earlier. Smiling, knowing he was well and truly beaten, he reluctantly sold the bag to Clare. On our way back to the back to the hotel Adam treated himself to some delicious roasted chestnuts, it was weird seeing them outside of London, nevermind in this heat and not in winter! After more than enough shopping we headed back to the hotel to get some rest for our flight back to Bangkok the following morning.
We awoke early with the rare treat of a breakfast provided at the hotel. As our flight was quite early, we checked out first and then headed to the breakfast room excitedly. Unfortunately the selection was far from good, with a choice of rice, rice porridge, stale triangular sandwiches or toast, not an egg to be seen anywhere! So, after a quick cup of tea and a slice of toast, we decided it was time to get on our way.
Tuesday, 26 May 2009
4th May 2009
The bus station at Kuala Lumpur can only be described as dark, dingy, chaotic and very noisey! We sat patiently at the platform number, it was obvious this bus was not going to arrive on time! 45 minutes late it eventually pulled in, we stowed our backpacks and settled in for our apparent 4 hour journey to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands.
It did not get off to a good start as we were informed that the air conditioning was not working! So we spent the first 2 hours travelling in what canonly be described as a greenhouse on wheels! Although the sears were very comfy, the heat made us both feel pretty uncomfortable and ill.
We pulled into our rest point and after watching people tinker around with the engine we were pleased to hear that the air con was back on and we continued with the journey. The last stretch took a further 3 hours, but as we got closer the views began to amaze us even if the bus drivers speed around the bends were pretty eratic!!
We were climbing higher into the hills passing the many tea plantations that we had been excited to see.
We had booked our 3 nights stay in Tanah Rata at Fathers Guest house and they kindly met us off the bus. A short minivan journey took us even higher into the hills and we checked into our room. It was pretty basic fir the price but afforded the best views we had seen. It was also obvious that due to the location the temperature had dropped some what, but for the start it was nice not to sweat with every tiny move!
That afternoon we explored the small own and found a restaurant for our evening meal. This proved interesting! We went along with a recommendation from our guest house and opted for a selection of curries served on a banana leaf! It included a lentil curry, popudoms, chutney, a chicken Korma, spicy vegetables and something that resembled aspinge cake in a spicy sauce!! It all tasted pretty nasty and was not helped that it was all served up on a big banana leaf! Not a plate in sight!!!
After the meal we headed back to the guest house, it was at this point that we really felt the cold for the first time in 5 months. We did not handle this too well and slept in our flight socks and layered up with t-shirts!! It felt freezing, little did we know but the temperature had only dropped to 24•c!!!
After a good breakfast, although still chilly we went for a walk. After taking a few photos we came across a rather bizarre sculpture of giant vegetables! Thinking this was pretty strange and knowing Clare's absolute hatred for sweetcorn we could not miss this opportunity. So over the fence Clare jumped and clambered over the giant corn on the cob for the necessary kodak moment! Continuing our walk we spotted a sign for a waterfall so off we trotted alongside a river into the jungle. We were not exactly dressed for this, but after climbing the temple ruins at Angkor in our flip flops, a walk in the jungle was easy! Eventually the jungle opened and we cane across a beautiful waterfall, bit the biggest we had seen but a pretty spot none the less.
Later that day we booked a half day trip for the following morning. That evening we could not face another curry served up on a leaf so we ate at the guest house and relaxed with a few beers!
We were being collected at 8.30am for our trip so we got up early to fill our bellies! As we nervously waitied, we noticed a 4 wheel drive land rover approaching, complete with horns on the bonnet, this was our ride for the trip!!
We were the only 2 on this trip, we do enjoy a bit of VIP service! We were soon on our way,the first stop was one of the highest viewpoints in the Cameron Highlands, up we went, higher and higher until we were up in the clouds. We climbed the viewpoint tower, which to Clares relief was not the pylon she had first spotted, but decided the 2nd level was enough as our heads were already up in the clouds and we did bit think we would benefit by climbing any higher! Although, due to the clouds, the view was a little disappointing we still enjoyed the moment and were able to capture some good views when the clouds moved along a little.
Our next stop was a teen through the Mossy Forest, we think our tour guide was being gentle with us as we went on an easier trek than some other options. This again afforded us some fantastic views and got us close to nature. Our guide also told us the story of school children getting lost in this forest so the army and police began a search. The children managed to find their way out alone but the police got lost and it took them 12 days to find their way back to civilisation! Adam looked very at home in the jungle as he clambered around looking the part in his Bear Grylls shorts!! Good luck starting a fire out here, it was so wet I think even Bear Grylls would struggle!!
After our trek we made our way to the high light of the trip, the Boh tea plantation. We were given a tour around the factory which showed the full process from picking the tea leaves to it being packed for distribution. We were then shown through to the gift shop, where of course we parted with some well earned Ringits and then moved on to the cafe. This was a gorgeous glass building with an open air wooden decking area, which overlooked spectacular views of the rolling tea plantations. Here we enjoyed a splendid, fresh pot of tea and we both had a slice of cake! After our refreshing cup of tea, we had a little walk into the tea plantation where Clare cheekily picked some tea off the plants!
Getting back into the car, Bala, our driver, began to explain to us how the tea is not such a good quality anymore. The tea used to be picked by hand and only the best leaves were selected, but now due to the use of machinery they are not able to be so precise. Not only are the older leaves selected, but also any wildlife that may have taken up residence will be processed to make that ultimate cuppa that us Brits so enjoy!
Our next stop was the butterfly farm, they also had a number of other insects and gave us the opportunity to hold various creepy crawlies, such as, a rhino beetle, a lizard, a toad, a giant grasshopper (well, Adam held that!) and finally we both held a scorpion. There were also many snakes, gekkos and obviously butterflies, they were huge and one even landed on Adams hand. We then made our way to the flower garden, which wasn't really Adams cup of tea, but beautiful and enabled Clare to get snap happy taking photos for her Mum. The plants in here were so tropical, we even spotted a marijuana plant growing in the corner!
Last of all was the Strawberry Farm, this was very much like a pick your own at home, but they were all grown hydroponically. Luckily for us we had our guide with us, so he picked a few sneaky ones for us and in his words, "they always taste nicer when they are free"! Again we found ourselves in a gift shop, where we were able to buy ourselves another fridge magnet. We then enjoyed a delicious strawberry milkshake!
Before we were dropped off, Bala took us to a local shop for Clare to buy his preferred cigarettes. They were black and flavoured with cherry, much to Clares excitement, she was also able to buy some pink ones, this time strawberry flavour! Surely as they are fruit flavoured they musnt be as bad for you!!
We had our bus booked for 10.30am the following day, so again we ate in our guest house and packed our backpacks ready to head back to Kuala Lumpur. We had a very good time in the Cameron Highlands but we will be glad to return to the 34 degrees that we are now very used to!
It did not get off to a good start as we were informed that the air conditioning was not working! So we spent the first 2 hours travelling in what canonly be described as a greenhouse on wheels! Although the sears were very comfy, the heat made us both feel pretty uncomfortable and ill.
We pulled into our rest point and after watching people tinker around with the engine we were pleased to hear that the air con was back on and we continued with the journey. The last stretch took a further 3 hours, but as we got closer the views began to amaze us even if the bus drivers speed around the bends were pretty eratic!!
We were climbing higher into the hills passing the many tea plantations that we had been excited to see.
We had booked our 3 nights stay in Tanah Rata at Fathers Guest house and they kindly met us off the bus. A short minivan journey took us even higher into the hills and we checked into our room. It was pretty basic fir the price but afforded the best views we had seen. It was also obvious that due to the location the temperature had dropped some what, but for the start it was nice not to sweat with every tiny move!
That afternoon we explored the small own and found a restaurant for our evening meal. This proved interesting! We went along with a recommendation from our guest house and opted for a selection of curries served on a banana leaf! It included a lentil curry, popudoms, chutney, a chicken Korma, spicy vegetables and something that resembled aspinge cake in a spicy sauce!! It all tasted pretty nasty and was not helped that it was all served up on a big banana leaf! Not a plate in sight!!!
After the meal we headed back to the guest house, it was at this point that we really felt the cold for the first time in 5 months. We did not handle this too well and slept in our flight socks and layered up with t-shirts!! It felt freezing, little did we know but the temperature had only dropped to 24•c!!!
After a good breakfast, although still chilly we went for a walk. After taking a few photos we came across a rather bizarre sculpture of giant vegetables! Thinking this was pretty strange and knowing Clare's absolute hatred for sweetcorn we could not miss this opportunity. So over the fence Clare jumped and clambered over the giant corn on the cob for the necessary kodak moment! Continuing our walk we spotted a sign for a waterfall so off we trotted alongside a river into the jungle. We were not exactly dressed for this, but after climbing the temple ruins at Angkor in our flip flops, a walk in the jungle was easy! Eventually the jungle opened and we cane across a beautiful waterfall, bit the biggest we had seen but a pretty spot none the less.
Later that day we booked a half day trip for the following morning. That evening we could not face another curry served up on a leaf so we ate at the guest house and relaxed with a few beers!
We were being collected at 8.30am for our trip so we got up early to fill our bellies! As we nervously waitied, we noticed a 4 wheel drive land rover approaching, complete with horns on the bonnet, this was our ride for the trip!!
We were the only 2 on this trip, we do enjoy a bit of VIP service! We were soon on our way,the first stop was one of the highest viewpoints in the Cameron Highlands, up we went, higher and higher until we were up in the clouds. We climbed the viewpoint tower, which to Clares relief was not the pylon she had first spotted, but decided the 2nd level was enough as our heads were already up in the clouds and we did bit think we would benefit by climbing any higher! Although, due to the clouds, the view was a little disappointing we still enjoyed the moment and were able to capture some good views when the clouds moved along a little.
Our next stop was a teen through the Mossy Forest, we think our tour guide was being gentle with us as we went on an easier trek than some other options. This again afforded us some fantastic views and got us close to nature. Our guide also told us the story of school children getting lost in this forest so the army and police began a search. The children managed to find their way out alone but the police got lost and it took them 12 days to find their way back to civilisation! Adam looked very at home in the jungle as he clambered around looking the part in his Bear Grylls shorts!! Good luck starting a fire out here, it was so wet I think even Bear Grylls would struggle!!
After our trek we made our way to the high light of the trip, the Boh tea plantation. We were given a tour around the factory which showed the full process from picking the tea leaves to it being packed for distribution. We were then shown through to the gift shop, where of course we parted with some well earned Ringits and then moved on to the cafe. This was a gorgeous glass building with an open air wooden decking area, which overlooked spectacular views of the rolling tea plantations. Here we enjoyed a splendid, fresh pot of tea and we both had a slice of cake! After our refreshing cup of tea, we had a little walk into the tea plantation where Clare cheekily picked some tea off the plants!
Getting back into the car, Bala, our driver, began to explain to us how the tea is not such a good quality anymore. The tea used to be picked by hand and only the best leaves were selected, but now due to the use of machinery they are not able to be so precise. Not only are the older leaves selected, but also any wildlife that may have taken up residence will be processed to make that ultimate cuppa that us Brits so enjoy!
Our next stop was the butterfly farm, they also had a number of other insects and gave us the opportunity to hold various creepy crawlies, such as, a rhino beetle, a lizard, a toad, a giant grasshopper (well, Adam held that!) and finally we both held a scorpion. There were also many snakes, gekkos and obviously butterflies, they were huge and one even landed on Adams hand. We then made our way to the flower garden, which wasn't really Adams cup of tea, but beautiful and enabled Clare to get snap happy taking photos for her Mum. The plants in here were so tropical, we even spotted a marijuana plant growing in the corner!
Last of all was the Strawberry Farm, this was very much like a pick your own at home, but they were all grown hydroponically. Luckily for us we had our guide with us, so he picked a few sneaky ones for us and in his words, "they always taste nicer when they are free"! Again we found ourselves in a gift shop, where we were able to buy ourselves another fridge magnet. We then enjoyed a delicious strawberry milkshake!
Before we were dropped off, Bala took us to a local shop for Clare to buy his preferred cigarettes. They were black and flavoured with cherry, much to Clares excitement, she was also able to buy some pink ones, this time strawberry flavour! Surely as they are fruit flavoured they musnt be as bad for you!!
We had our bus booked for 10.30am the following day, so again we ate in our guest house and packed our backpacks ready to head back to Kuala Lumpur. We had a very good time in the Cameron Highlands but we will be glad to return to the 34 degrees that we are now very used to!
2nd May 2009
Arriving at Bangkok airport we quickly checked into our flight and soon realized we had far too much hand luggage to be carrying on and off buses. After searching around we found a left luggage service, so we quickly transferred all the heavy gifts into the one bag and checked it in with them. It was a pretty decent price at only 100Baht (£2) a day, money well spent for the convenience, little did we realize it would give us free reign to buy more gifts for ourselves!
We were flying with the budget airline Air Asia, it was a small plane, but very comfortable and brand new. A little different to our last experience at the hands of Laos Airlines! After getting ready for take off, the stewardess asked us if we would mind changing our seats. Although this meant we would not be sitting together, it did mean that we had the exit seats, giving us plenty of legroom and a pretty enjoyable 2 hour flight.
After completing yet another entry card, but thanfully with no visa fee, we soon had our backpacks and began how to figure out how to get to KL Sentral. Yet again it would appear that our guidebook was not all that accurate, as the train station we were hoping to find was at a different terminal. After getting some quotes for a taxi and nor liking the prices, we ventured back into the airport to ask for any cheaper options. We were soon directed towards ticket booths for buses that ran to KL Sentral every fifteen minutes. This was great, for the hours journey it only cost 9RM (£1.80) each. The journey went very quickly and took us past the famous Malaysian Grand Prix circuit, if only we'd have been here a few weeks earlier!
The bus dropped us off right outside KL Sentral, so we grabbed our bags, bought a train ticket for the monorail and we were soon checking into the Chinatown Hotel Inn. Making our way to the hotel was pretty dificult as it's in the heart of the Chinatown market. As it was now early evening and the market was in full swing it was absolutely full of people trying to get the best price for their fake Gucci and Prada goods!
That evening we found an Indian cafe serving all types of curry to have our dinner, it was really cheap, but boy did it blow away the cobwebs! It was really very spicy, Adam seems to now be immune to even the most fiery chilies, but Clare did struggle!
Yet again we had some email correspondence to catch up on, this time it was our final letter to Andrews estate agents threatening legal action, so we made our way to the Internet cafe. This was really a one person job, so Clare left Adam to do his best. After a couple of hours Adam returned with the completed letter, we drunk a couple of beers to celebrate and then went to bed.
The next morning Clare awoke with a spring in her step as finally they day had arrived for her to hopefully get her hair back to a respectable colour! We had a very quick breakfast and made our way by train to the Suria shopping mall to find the 'Saw' salon. We found it very quickly and Clare was soon getting some much needed advice. The salon was beautiful and gave Clare the confidence that they knew what they were doing. We were given an appointment at 1pm, so we had a walk around the many shops and grabbed a quick lunch.
Knowing Clare would be in the salon for quite a while, we headed to the cinema complex to see if there were any good films for Adam to watch. It all worked out perfectly, Wolverine was starting at the time of Clares appointment, so Adam got himself a ticket and walked Clare back to the salon. Once Adam knew Clare was settled and knew she was in good hands he headed off to watch his film.
After a long time in the salon it became apparent that Clares hair was severely damaged and that the previous salon had got the colour so wrong that they decided to put peroxide on it! Luckily the owner of 'Saw' used to be a stylist to the stars in London, well the Spice Girls and Tony Blair, but he certainly knew his stuff and soon Clares scarf, which had become permanantly attached to her head, was no longer needed! Adam had already returned from his film to meet Clare and was amazed at what a good job they had done! So off we both went, Adam happy to have been to the cinema and Clare happy that she didn't look like Dolly Parton anymore!
That evening we got a take away of fried noodles, chicken satays and some cold beer! We then felt the need to explore the market and to see if we could pick up some bargains. Adam found himself a rather nice Armani brown leather bag for work and after some good haggling, he made his purchase!
As we have a VIP bus booked for the following morning to take us to the Cameron Highlands, it was time to relax back at the hotel in preparation for our early start.
We were flying with the budget airline Air Asia, it was a small plane, but very comfortable and brand new. A little different to our last experience at the hands of Laos Airlines! After getting ready for take off, the stewardess asked us if we would mind changing our seats. Although this meant we would not be sitting together, it did mean that we had the exit seats, giving us plenty of legroom and a pretty enjoyable 2 hour flight.
After completing yet another entry card, but thanfully with no visa fee, we soon had our backpacks and began how to figure out how to get to KL Sentral. Yet again it would appear that our guidebook was not all that accurate, as the train station we were hoping to find was at a different terminal. After getting some quotes for a taxi and nor liking the prices, we ventured back into the airport to ask for any cheaper options. We were soon directed towards ticket booths for buses that ran to KL Sentral every fifteen minutes. This was great, for the hours journey it only cost 9RM (£1.80) each. The journey went very quickly and took us past the famous Malaysian Grand Prix circuit, if only we'd have been here a few weeks earlier!
The bus dropped us off right outside KL Sentral, so we grabbed our bags, bought a train ticket for the monorail and we were soon checking into the Chinatown Hotel Inn. Making our way to the hotel was pretty dificult as it's in the heart of the Chinatown market. As it was now early evening and the market was in full swing it was absolutely full of people trying to get the best price for their fake Gucci and Prada goods!
That evening we found an Indian cafe serving all types of curry to have our dinner, it was really cheap, but boy did it blow away the cobwebs! It was really very spicy, Adam seems to now be immune to even the most fiery chilies, but Clare did struggle!
Yet again we had some email correspondence to catch up on, this time it was our final letter to Andrews estate agents threatening legal action, so we made our way to the Internet cafe. This was really a one person job, so Clare left Adam to do his best. After a couple of hours Adam returned with the completed letter, we drunk a couple of beers to celebrate and then went to bed.
The next morning Clare awoke with a spring in her step as finally they day had arrived for her to hopefully get her hair back to a respectable colour! We had a very quick breakfast and made our way by train to the Suria shopping mall to find the 'Saw' salon. We found it very quickly and Clare was soon getting some much needed advice. The salon was beautiful and gave Clare the confidence that they knew what they were doing. We were given an appointment at 1pm, so we had a walk around the many shops and grabbed a quick lunch.
Knowing Clare would be in the salon for quite a while, we headed to the cinema complex to see if there were any good films for Adam to watch. It all worked out perfectly, Wolverine was starting at the time of Clares appointment, so Adam got himself a ticket and walked Clare back to the salon. Once Adam knew Clare was settled and knew she was in good hands he headed off to watch his film.
After a long time in the salon it became apparent that Clares hair was severely damaged and that the previous salon had got the colour so wrong that they decided to put peroxide on it! Luckily the owner of 'Saw' used to be a stylist to the stars in London, well the Spice Girls and Tony Blair, but he certainly knew his stuff and soon Clares scarf, which had become permanantly attached to her head, was no longer needed! Adam had already returned from his film to meet Clare and was amazed at what a good job they had done! So off we both went, Adam happy to have been to the cinema and Clare happy that she didn't look like Dolly Parton anymore!
That evening we got a take away of fried noodles, chicken satays and some cold beer! We then felt the need to explore the market and to see if we could pick up some bargains. Adam found himself a rather nice Armani brown leather bag for work and after some good haggling, he made his purchase!
As we have a VIP bus booked for the following morning to take us to the Cameron Highlands, it was time to relax back at the hotel in preparation for our early start.
Monday, 25 May 2009
1st May 2009
We were up bright and early for the 9am bus to Bangkok and had enough time to grab a quick cheese and ham toasty from the 7-11 for breakfast. We were soon on our way and the three hour journey passed very quickly.
As we arrived into Bangkok it became apparent that we were heading to a different bus terminal than usual, Mo Chit. This was a great result for us as it was much closer to our hotel and a much cheaper taxi fare. We quickly collected our luggage from the bus and hailed ourselves a taxi.
In no time at all we arrived at our hotel, Suk 11, the first hotel that we stayed in on this trip. We checked in and discovered that we were on the 4th floor, this was a real shame as there was no lift here and our luggage seemed to be getting heavier by the day! After we carried our luggage up the tiny staircases we were surprised to find that we had a balcony. It wasn't much of a view, but nevertheless it was nice to have. We did however discover that our balcony was the main fire escape, which apparently meant jumping 2 metres from the balcony onto a small metal pole with the odd rusty step welded on to it. After seeing this we hoped and prayed that there wouldn't be a fire!
We were only in Bangkok for a quick overnight stay as we had to be at the airport the next morning, so we didn't have any plans. We were originally going to Toni & Guys, but thankfully had thought better of it. We spent a lazy afternoon and enjoyed a tasty take away in the evening in our guest houses garden, fried rice and some lovely chicken skewers. We had ourselves an early night as we had to be on the way to the airport at 9am.
After a good sleep we were looking forward to a good breakfast as Adam had fond memories from our last stay with toast, fruit and blueberry muffins! No such luck this time, there was no sign of the muffins, just toast and jam! After dragging our backpacks down the 4 flights of stairs again, we hailed a taxi and were soon heading towards the airport.
As we arrived into Bangkok it became apparent that we were heading to a different bus terminal than usual, Mo Chit. This was a great result for us as it was much closer to our hotel and a much cheaper taxi fare. We quickly collected our luggage from the bus and hailed ourselves a taxi.
In no time at all we arrived at our hotel, Suk 11, the first hotel that we stayed in on this trip. We checked in and discovered that we were on the 4th floor, this was a real shame as there was no lift here and our luggage seemed to be getting heavier by the day! After we carried our luggage up the tiny staircases we were surprised to find that we had a balcony. It wasn't much of a view, but nevertheless it was nice to have. We did however discover that our balcony was the main fire escape, which apparently meant jumping 2 metres from the balcony onto a small metal pole with the odd rusty step welded on to it. After seeing this we hoped and prayed that there wouldn't be a fire!
We were only in Bangkok for a quick overnight stay as we had to be at the airport the next morning, so we didn't have any plans. We were originally going to Toni & Guys, but thankfully had thought better of it. We spent a lazy afternoon and enjoyed a tasty take away in the evening in our guest houses garden, fried rice and some lovely chicken skewers. We had ourselves an early night as we had to be on the way to the airport at 9am.
After a good sleep we were looking forward to a good breakfast as Adam had fond memories from our last stay with toast, fruit and blueberry muffins! No such luck this time, there was no sign of the muffins, just toast and jam! After dragging our backpacks down the 4 flights of stairs again, we hailed a taxi and were soon heading towards the airport.
24th April 2009
We arrived at Trat bus station early for our 9am departure and in good time as there was a torrential downpour after we arrived. This was very welcome and cooled us down no end. The bus left on time, but it took longer than the expected 5 hours, it ended up being almost 6 hours in total, just what we needed! So, at just before 3pm we arrived at Bangkoks Ekami bus terminal and after a few moments of stretching our aching legs, we jumped into a taxi to take us to the Southern bus terminal. Our driver was good and seemed to know all the back roads, but it still took us about an hour to reach the bus terminal.
As soon as we arrived we wended our way up all the escalators at the terminal and quickly found the correct desk to buy a ticket from. The next available bus wasn't until 5pm, which was useful as it gave us time to grab a naughty KFC for our lunch. 5pm soon came and after the usual confusion on seat numbers (the seats are always numbered differently to the tickets!), our luggage was on board and we were heading to our destination of Hua Hin.
In almost exactly three hours we arrived at Hua Hin and were dropped off only a few steps from our hotel, Cha-Ba Chalet. We had finally done it, we were at our final destination after 19 hours of buses over 2 days, we are getting pros at this travelling business!
After a few language difficulties we managed to check into our hotel and we were soon shown to our room. Unfortunately our memories of our first stay here had been a little on the wrong side, the aircon was very smelly (and didn't appear to work very well), the bed uncomfortable, and to top it all off, the TV was all in Thai! We were far too tired to do anything about it, so we quickly showered and headed to our favourite street food vendor, 'Top Restaurant', which was just up the road. We had some delicious food here, washed down with a few welcome beers, this made us glad to be back and helped us forget about all those buses.
After dinner, on our way to the 7-11, we noticed a new hotel with a swimming pool. We went in and inquired about their prices, they were very reasonable and the rooms looked new, so we decided to return the following morning to have a look at the rooms. We headed back to our hotel for a well deserved sleep, but unfortunately for us it didn't really happen. Alternating between the pungent aircon smell and the humidity without it, proved a fairly restless night all in all!
The following morning we had an early breakfast and headed to Baan Manthana Hotel to have a look at their rooms. They showed us a room in the new block, it was very nice, no nasty aroma, had a lovely bathroom and even a balcony. We bargained them down on their asking price and headed back to Cha-Ba Chalet to pick up our belongings. We settled our bill at reception much to the staffs surprise, we think they presumed we were going to be staying longer, after all we had booked 7 nights! We headed straight back to Baan Manthana luggage in hand, it was much nicer there, more comfortable, the staff were friendlier, we felt much more at home already!
We spent another six nights in Hua Hin, our days were spent walking on the beach and swimming in the pool and our nights were spent eating great food at 'Top Restaurant', exploring the night market and playing cards and drinking beer on our balcony. We had also booked ourselves flights to Kuala Lumpur leaving on the 2nd May as we wanted to explore a little more of Malaysia.
Two days before we were due to leave for Bangkok to catch our flights, Clare decided to visit a hair salon and have her hair high lights re-coloured, as she thougt she would save some money having it done here in Asia. She managed to find a reputable one in town and nervously she made her way to the salon with Adam in tow for moral support. We enterted the salon and Clare tried to make herself clear in what she wanted doing, she chose a colour from a set of examples and was led to a waiting chair. Her stylist for today was a ladyboy, which raised some eyebrows to say the least. It all seemed to start very well as they were applying the colour and they seemed to know what they were doing. After about an hour, boredom had set in for Adam and he decided to get his hair shaved. They did a good job and he even had a nice head massage.
A little later and it was time for Clares big reveal. The ladyboy stylist unravelled the towel from Clares head and as she looked into the mirror, all Clare could say was "Woah!". The colour of her hair was bright yellow all over, apart from the underneath back part which was still brown. Clare did well to hold back the tears at this point as it looked truly awful, as she looked over to Adam, his expression confirmed that it was far from good. All this was compounded by the fact that they ladyboy stylist kept repeating "very beautiful madam", when it obviously was not.
Very quickly we left the salon and Clare could no longer hold back the tears, not surprisingly as they had completely butchered her hair! We went straight back to the hotel and both of us were in need of a beer in the light of this trauma. There were no two ways about it, it was terrible and it needed sorting out. It's hard to describle how bad it actually was, but we think a blind stylist could have done a much better job! Clare quickly found a hair band, which thanfully hid the worst of it and we got straight onto the Internet to find a decent hair salon that could fix this mess. We found a Toni & Guy salon in Bangkok, so we decided to leave early on the Friday so Clare could pay them a visit. But after a little more research, it seemed that even Toni & Guy in Bangkok were damaging and mis-colouring western hair, so we quickly abandoned that idea. Luckily Adam found a top hair salon at the Suria shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur called 'Saw' and this was a top notch salon and very used to western hair. Clare emailed them and managed to get an appointment for the Sunday, good news, as we were flying in on Saturday! Hopefully they'll be able to fix it!
The remainder of our time in Hua Hin went very quickly and Clare got her moneys worth from her hair band, but before we knew it our bus was booked to take us back to Bangkok in preparation for our flight to Kuala Lumpur.
As soon as we arrived we wended our way up all the escalators at the terminal and quickly found the correct desk to buy a ticket from. The next available bus wasn't until 5pm, which was useful as it gave us time to grab a naughty KFC for our lunch. 5pm soon came and after the usual confusion on seat numbers (the seats are always numbered differently to the tickets!), our luggage was on board and we were heading to our destination of Hua Hin.
In almost exactly three hours we arrived at Hua Hin and were dropped off only a few steps from our hotel, Cha-Ba Chalet. We had finally done it, we were at our final destination after 19 hours of buses over 2 days, we are getting pros at this travelling business!
After a few language difficulties we managed to check into our hotel and we were soon shown to our room. Unfortunately our memories of our first stay here had been a little on the wrong side, the aircon was very smelly (and didn't appear to work very well), the bed uncomfortable, and to top it all off, the TV was all in Thai! We were far too tired to do anything about it, so we quickly showered and headed to our favourite street food vendor, 'Top Restaurant', which was just up the road. We had some delicious food here, washed down with a few welcome beers, this made us glad to be back and helped us forget about all those buses.
After dinner, on our way to the 7-11, we noticed a new hotel with a swimming pool. We went in and inquired about their prices, they were very reasonable and the rooms looked new, so we decided to return the following morning to have a look at the rooms. We headed back to our hotel for a well deserved sleep, but unfortunately for us it didn't really happen. Alternating between the pungent aircon smell and the humidity without it, proved a fairly restless night all in all!
The following morning we had an early breakfast and headed to Baan Manthana Hotel to have a look at their rooms. They showed us a room in the new block, it was very nice, no nasty aroma, had a lovely bathroom and even a balcony. We bargained them down on their asking price and headed back to Cha-Ba Chalet to pick up our belongings. We settled our bill at reception much to the staffs surprise, we think they presumed we were going to be staying longer, after all we had booked 7 nights! We headed straight back to Baan Manthana luggage in hand, it was much nicer there, more comfortable, the staff were friendlier, we felt much more at home already!
We spent another six nights in Hua Hin, our days were spent walking on the beach and swimming in the pool and our nights were spent eating great food at 'Top Restaurant', exploring the night market and playing cards and drinking beer on our balcony. We had also booked ourselves flights to Kuala Lumpur leaving on the 2nd May as we wanted to explore a little more of Malaysia.
Two days before we were due to leave for Bangkok to catch our flights, Clare decided to visit a hair salon and have her hair high lights re-coloured, as she thougt she would save some money having it done here in Asia. She managed to find a reputable one in town and nervously she made her way to the salon with Adam in tow for moral support. We enterted the salon and Clare tried to make herself clear in what she wanted doing, she chose a colour from a set of examples and was led to a waiting chair. Her stylist for today was a ladyboy, which raised some eyebrows to say the least. It all seemed to start very well as they were applying the colour and they seemed to know what they were doing. After about an hour, boredom had set in for Adam and he decided to get his hair shaved. They did a good job and he even had a nice head massage.
A little later and it was time for Clares big reveal. The ladyboy stylist unravelled the towel from Clares head and as she looked into the mirror, all Clare could say was "Woah!". The colour of her hair was bright yellow all over, apart from the underneath back part which was still brown. Clare did well to hold back the tears at this point as it looked truly awful, as she looked over to Adam, his expression confirmed that it was far from good. All this was compounded by the fact that they ladyboy stylist kept repeating "very beautiful madam", when it obviously was not.
Very quickly we left the salon and Clare could no longer hold back the tears, not surprisingly as they had completely butchered her hair! We went straight back to the hotel and both of us were in need of a beer in the light of this trauma. There were no two ways about it, it was terrible and it needed sorting out. It's hard to describle how bad it actually was, but we think a blind stylist could have done a much better job! Clare quickly found a hair band, which thanfully hid the worst of it and we got straight onto the Internet to find a decent hair salon that could fix this mess. We found a Toni & Guy salon in Bangkok, so we decided to leave early on the Friday so Clare could pay them a visit. But after a little more research, it seemed that even Toni & Guy in Bangkok were damaging and mis-colouring western hair, so we quickly abandoned that idea. Luckily Adam found a top hair salon at the Suria shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur called 'Saw' and this was a top notch salon and very used to western hair. Clare emailed them and managed to get an appointment for the Sunday, good news, as we were flying in on Saturday! Hopefully they'll be able to fix it!
The remainder of our time in Hua Hin went very quickly and Clare got her moneys worth from her hair band, but before we knew it our bus was booked to take us back to Bangkok in preparation for our flight to Kuala Lumpur.
23rd April 2009
After a quick breakfast, we were soon picked up by one of the tuk tuk drivers that we had got to know during our stay and we were speeding towards Sihanoukville bus station. We were feeling very emotional on this little journey, knowing that we were finally leaving Cambodia for good, a place we had grown to love. We said goodbye to our driver and quickly boarded our bus, before we knew it we were heading out of Sihanoukville, feeling very sad and emotional.
The four hour journey passed very quickly and we were soon at the border town of Koh Kong. We were handed our Thai arrival cards to fill out and soon we were heading towards the border, hoping for a smoother exit than the entry we had. It was all very civilized, we grabbed our luggage, quickly had our exit visa stamped in Cambodia, crossed no mans land and soon we were in Thailand again. It was a nice feeling not to be paying any visa fees this time!
Our ticket included transport all the way to a town called Trat, so we had to wait for a bus or van at the border, we weren't quite sure at this point. We were a little confused as to where to wait or for what we were waiting for, so we asked some Thais (who seemed to be arranging the transport) what exactly to do. We were told quite bluntly, just to wait. All very helpful, it was so much clearer now! It was a particularly hot day and thankfully we managed to find ourselves a small spot in the shade to wait. We waited and we waited... We tried asking several times as to when our transport was going to arrive, but again we were told just to wait! Our frustration levels were growing high, as one by one, everyone else seemed to be getting onto buses and minivans, no one seemed to be going to Trat apart from us. After a very hot 2 hours of waiting we eventually gave up 'just waiting' and told the Thais that we would be getting on the minivan to Koh Chang and that they could drop us off en route! Thankfully, but in a very offhanded manner, they agreed. This was a great welcome back to Thailand!
So after a very hot 90 minute drive, as the aircon didn't appear to work, we were dropped off at our accomodation, the SA Hotel. This was only going to be an overnight stopover on our way to Hua Hin the following day, so we decided to go with one of the two bigger hotels in Trat. So after our 8 hour journey, our first impression of the hotel was not a positive one, it looked a little run down from the outside, but hey, appearances can be very deceptive.
We checked in and headed up to our room, unfortunately our expectations were a little let down. It wasn't a bad room on the whole, just not very comfortable, it almost resembled a very sparse dentists waiting room, all white and chrome and very bare looking!
We didn't want to really hang around in our room and as we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we decided to head out early for some dinner. On our previous stay in Trat we found a very nice restaurant serving great Thai food, so no surprises, we headed straight there! We had been looking forward to eating here again, so we ordered our favourites, a Thai seafood salad and a chicken and chili dish. Somehow the chef managed to get the order wrong and served us breaded prawns instead! When we told then this, they moaned and finally gave us the dishes we ordered, although we do think they made the dishes extra spicy just to annoy us! It seemed that they had a new, grumpy chef and unfortunately the food was a real let down.
After eating we decided to head to Basar Garden to see Noi, who we'd befriended on our last stay in Trat. It was no disappointment here, she remembered us from all those weeks and months ago and gave us a very warm welcome, even remembering where we had been off travelling to. After a few beers and a good catch up, we were given a bunch of bananas to take for our journey the following day. We said our goodbyes to Noi and headed off back to our waiting room.
After a decent nights sleep and a quick breakfast we were on the back of a sangathaew heading towards Trat bus station for another marathon day of buses to get us to Hua Hin.
The four hour journey passed very quickly and we were soon at the border town of Koh Kong. We were handed our Thai arrival cards to fill out and soon we were heading towards the border, hoping for a smoother exit than the entry we had. It was all very civilized, we grabbed our luggage, quickly had our exit visa stamped in Cambodia, crossed no mans land and soon we were in Thailand again. It was a nice feeling not to be paying any visa fees this time!
Our ticket included transport all the way to a town called Trat, so we had to wait for a bus or van at the border, we weren't quite sure at this point. We were a little confused as to where to wait or for what we were waiting for, so we asked some Thais (who seemed to be arranging the transport) what exactly to do. We were told quite bluntly, just to wait. All very helpful, it was so much clearer now! It was a particularly hot day and thankfully we managed to find ourselves a small spot in the shade to wait. We waited and we waited... We tried asking several times as to when our transport was going to arrive, but again we were told just to wait! Our frustration levels were growing high, as one by one, everyone else seemed to be getting onto buses and minivans, no one seemed to be going to Trat apart from us. After a very hot 2 hours of waiting we eventually gave up 'just waiting' and told the Thais that we would be getting on the minivan to Koh Chang and that they could drop us off en route! Thankfully, but in a very offhanded manner, they agreed. This was a great welcome back to Thailand!
So after a very hot 90 minute drive, as the aircon didn't appear to work, we were dropped off at our accomodation, the SA Hotel. This was only going to be an overnight stopover on our way to Hua Hin the following day, so we decided to go with one of the two bigger hotels in Trat. So after our 8 hour journey, our first impression of the hotel was not a positive one, it looked a little run down from the outside, but hey, appearances can be very deceptive.
We checked in and headed up to our room, unfortunately our expectations were a little let down. It wasn't a bad room on the whole, just not very comfortable, it almost resembled a very sparse dentists waiting room, all white and chrome and very bare looking!
We didn't want to really hang around in our room and as we hadn't eaten since breakfast, we decided to head out early for some dinner. On our previous stay in Trat we found a very nice restaurant serving great Thai food, so no surprises, we headed straight there! We had been looking forward to eating here again, so we ordered our favourites, a Thai seafood salad and a chicken and chili dish. Somehow the chef managed to get the order wrong and served us breaded prawns instead! When we told then this, they moaned and finally gave us the dishes we ordered, although we do think they made the dishes extra spicy just to annoy us! It seemed that they had a new, grumpy chef and unfortunately the food was a real let down.
After eating we decided to head to Basar Garden to see Noi, who we'd befriended on our last stay in Trat. It was no disappointment here, she remembered us from all those weeks and months ago and gave us a very warm welcome, even remembering where we had been off travelling to. After a few beers and a good catch up, we were given a bunch of bananas to take for our journey the following day. We said our goodbyes to Noi and headed off back to our waiting room.
After a decent nights sleep and a quick breakfast we were on the back of a sangathaew heading towards Trat bus station for another marathon day of buses to get us to Hua Hin.
13th April 2009
We were not being collected for our bus as it was the Khmer New Year, so we jumped on a tuk tuk and arrived at the chaotic office at Paramount Angkor Express. Buses came and went and eventually ours turned up an hour and a half late! It takes a while to load and unload these buses mainly due to the fact that people travel with their mopeds and these are stored on the lower floor of the bus! As you can imagine loading 6 mopeds in a bus takes careful planning and precision!
We were feeling a bit nervous about arriving at Sihanoukville as the previous night we had called to reserve a room at the now familiar Beach Road Hotel, but we received mixed messages about the price and whether or not they had rooms available.
We need not have worried, we arrived to an awesome welcome from the hotel staff, this is our third visit here! We were shown to our room, the had put us in a brand new room overlooking the gorgeous 25m swimming pool. The room was fantastic, very nicely finished and the bathroom was amazing complete with a black slate tiled floor. We dumped our bags and headed straight to the bar for a cold draft beer and possibly a game of pool.
The Estonian girl behind the bar came over and chatted and asked where we had been. We explained that it was Clare's birthday and we had been back to Angkor Wat. She then disappeared and return with 2 complimentry drinks which were a local Estonian liquor, we don't like to offend anyone, so we accepted the free drink! It was delicious and just what we needed after a long day if travelling! As we were enjoying a beer we noticed that our new friend Li was beckoning Adam over. So off Adam went leaving Clare to relax with her beer! After some 30 minutes Adam returned with a big cheeky grin on his face. A group of 4 tuk tuk drivers had invited him along to begin their New Year celebrations, which included plenty of beer and some Khmer food such as grillled fish with chili and spring onions. No wonder Adam looked so cheeky, the Khmer tradition is that each person makes a toast and then everybody has a drink!
The following day was the beginning of the major celebrations for the Khmer New Year and we experienced this almost straight away. As we had yet more emails to check from Andrews Estate Agents, we made our way to the Internet cafe, only to be met by Li throwing talcum powder all over us! For some reason, and we never managed to find out why, they celebrate new year by throwing talc and water! This was going to be an interesting day!! We managed to avoid the offenders by chilling by the pool for the rest of the day, knowing full well we would be under attack when night time came!
That evening we had dinner at the Bayon and then made our way to meet Dave and the gang at The Cool Banana. At midnight they were all heading to the beach to really start celebrating! We were asked to join them so at 12.30am we made our way to meet them. It was great, we were all dancing, drinking and having fun. The next thing we noticed was that Sara and Jen had just purchased some more talc and we got smothered in the stuff! It was so funny, it did not stop us at all, but by 2.30am we decided to head back to the hotel, leaving them to continue dancing on the beach and enjoying their celebrations. When we returned to our room we remembered Liverpool were playing that night so we stayed up until 5am to watch the whole match!
The next day began quite slowly as we woke feeling a little but muzzy and tired from all the celebrating. We did not have any plans so we went for a long walk on the beach to clear our heads! We had never seen the beach so busy filled with Khmer families enjoying their New Year holiday. Their celebrations last for 3 days and they really go to town, unlike us Brits who only really celebrate New Year for a few minutes and the stroke of midnight!
In total we spent 10 days back at the Beach Road Hotel and had a truly excellent time, swimming, walking on the beach, spending time with Dave, Sara, Jen, Nick, Pat and not forgetting the crazy Li!!
Unfortunately our Cambodian visa was coming to an end so we booked a bus for the next day to take us across the border of Thailand and onto a small town called Trat.
On our last night we went to the Cool Banana and The Bayon to say our goodbyes to all of the nice people we had met and spent time with. We all swapped email addresses and made our way back to our hotel for a good sleep. It us an early start for us tomorrow and a full day of buses!!!!
We were feeling a bit nervous about arriving at Sihanoukville as the previous night we had called to reserve a room at the now familiar Beach Road Hotel, but we received mixed messages about the price and whether or not they had rooms available.
We need not have worried, we arrived to an awesome welcome from the hotel staff, this is our third visit here! We were shown to our room, the had put us in a brand new room overlooking the gorgeous 25m swimming pool. The room was fantastic, very nicely finished and the bathroom was amazing complete with a black slate tiled floor. We dumped our bags and headed straight to the bar for a cold draft beer and possibly a game of pool.
The Estonian girl behind the bar came over and chatted and asked where we had been. We explained that it was Clare's birthday and we had been back to Angkor Wat. She then disappeared and return with 2 complimentry drinks which were a local Estonian liquor, we don't like to offend anyone, so we accepted the free drink! It was delicious and just what we needed after a long day if travelling! As we were enjoying a beer we noticed that our new friend Li was beckoning Adam over. So off Adam went leaving Clare to relax with her beer! After some 30 minutes Adam returned with a big cheeky grin on his face. A group of 4 tuk tuk drivers had invited him along to begin their New Year celebrations, which included plenty of beer and some Khmer food such as grillled fish with chili and spring onions. No wonder Adam looked so cheeky, the Khmer tradition is that each person makes a toast and then everybody has a drink!
The following day was the beginning of the major celebrations for the Khmer New Year and we experienced this almost straight away. As we had yet more emails to check from Andrews Estate Agents, we made our way to the Internet cafe, only to be met by Li throwing talcum powder all over us! For some reason, and we never managed to find out why, they celebrate new year by throwing talc and water! This was going to be an interesting day!! We managed to avoid the offenders by chilling by the pool for the rest of the day, knowing full well we would be under attack when night time came!
That evening we had dinner at the Bayon and then made our way to meet Dave and the gang at The Cool Banana. At midnight they were all heading to the beach to really start celebrating! We were asked to join them so at 12.30am we made our way to meet them. It was great, we were all dancing, drinking and having fun. The next thing we noticed was that Sara and Jen had just purchased some more talc and we got smothered in the stuff! It was so funny, it did not stop us at all, but by 2.30am we decided to head back to the hotel, leaving them to continue dancing on the beach and enjoying their celebrations. When we returned to our room we remembered Liverpool were playing that night so we stayed up until 5am to watch the whole match!
The next day began quite slowly as we woke feeling a little but muzzy and tired from all the celebrating. We did not have any plans so we went for a long walk on the beach to clear our heads! We had never seen the beach so busy filled with Khmer families enjoying their New Year holiday. Their celebrations last for 3 days and they really go to town, unlike us Brits who only really celebrate New Year for a few minutes and the stroke of midnight!
In total we spent 10 days back at the Beach Road Hotel and had a truly excellent time, swimming, walking on the beach, spending time with Dave, Sara, Jen, Nick, Pat and not forgetting the crazy Li!!
Unfortunately our Cambodian visa was coming to an end so we booked a bus for the next day to take us across the border of Thailand and onto a small town called Trat.
On our last night we went to the Cool Banana and The Bayon to say our goodbyes to all of the nice people we had met and spent time with. We all swapped email addresses and made our way back to our hotel for a good sleep. It us an early start for us tomorrow and a full day of buses!!!!
Monday, 11 May 2009
12th April 2009
As we had booked the Apsara minivan to take us back to Phnom Penh, we were picked up at our hotel by a tuk tuk. Sure enough, bang in time Shukry pulled up, he said that he had seen the hotel pick up list and thought it would be us! This was great as it gave us a last chance to say goodbye to him and also give him a gift to celebrate the Khmer New Year. As we pulled away we both felt a little emotional knowing that we would not see him again, but we do have his email address so hopefully we can keep in touch.
After a slow journey we once again arrived in Phnom Penh. As we made our way to the hotel we both laughed that we were always commenting on why anyone would turn up in Phnom Penh, not only with no accomodation booked, but also at night! We were doing exactly that same thing, and in one of the most dangerous cities in Asia!!
Pulling into the road where our hotel was, we passed the 2 owners of the Blue Dolphin restaurant, who shouted and waved, then as we pulled up to the HRH hotel we were greeted in the very same way! It's amazing how you can visit the same places over and over again in the UK and not even get a smile, yet in Cambodia you are treated like a long lost friend. The people are so open and honest here and not afraid to say that theyvare happy to see you. Even the tuk tuk driver commented, saying "alot of people know you"!!
As we arrived late we checked into our room, which appeared to be pretty nice! We then headed straight over to the Blue Dolphin, it was well past beer o'clock already and we were pretty hungry!
After another good evening in the Blue Dolphin we headed to our hotel. We had arrived too late to book our bus to Sihanoukville, so we had to get up early in the morning to ensure we could book our seats.
After what was another bad night due to air con smells, we got up early and booked 2 seats on the bus to Sihanoukville. It was coming up to the Khmer NewYear so the early bus was completely full, but luckily for us we managed to get seats on the 12.45pm bus. It seems that many Khmers leave Phnom Penh over the New Year and head to the beaches if Sihanoukville, so let's just hope wecarecabke to get ourselves a room!!
After a slow journey we once again arrived in Phnom Penh. As we made our way to the hotel we both laughed that we were always commenting on why anyone would turn up in Phnom Penh, not only with no accomodation booked, but also at night! We were doing exactly that same thing, and in one of the most dangerous cities in Asia!!
Pulling into the road where our hotel was, we passed the 2 owners of the Blue Dolphin restaurant, who shouted and waved, then as we pulled up to the HRH hotel we were greeted in the very same way! It's amazing how you can visit the same places over and over again in the UK and not even get a smile, yet in Cambodia you are treated like a long lost friend. The people are so open and honest here and not afraid to say that theyvare happy to see you. Even the tuk tuk driver commented, saying "alot of people know you"!!
As we arrived late we checked into our room, which appeared to be pretty nice! We then headed straight over to the Blue Dolphin, it was well past beer o'clock already and we were pretty hungry!
After another good evening in the Blue Dolphin we headed to our hotel. We had arrived too late to book our bus to Sihanoukville, so we had to get up early in the morning to ensure we could book our seats.
After what was another bad night due to air con smells, we got up early and booked 2 seats on the bus to Sihanoukville. It was coming up to the Khmer NewYear so the early bus was completely full, but luckily for us we managed to get seats on the 12.45pm bus. It seems that many Khmers leave Phnom Penh over the New Year and head to the beaches if Sihanoukville, so let's just hope wecarecabke to get ourselves a room!!
Thursday, 30 April 2009
6th May 2009
Arriving back in Phnom Penh always starts off a bit hectic, the bus pulls into a small office and the bags are off loaded. Before we have had time to locate our bags, we are surrounded by tuk tuk and moto drivers, all promising to give us the best price. Luckily this was our third visit, so we were unfazed by this chaos. We quickly grabbed our bags, jumped on a tuk tuk for a $3 ride and checked in at The Super Star Hotel.
We were pretty hungry, so we set off to The Blue Dolphin for our favourite steak and onion baguettes! We have become regulars here and we were welcomed like old friends. They even remembered that it was Clares birthday in a couple of days.
That afternoon we booked our minivan to take us to Siem Reap the following morning. We had used this company before and knew that if we wanted a comfortable journey, we had to get seats towards the front of the van. Sure enough, we managed to get seats 1 & 2! It was going to be an early start, so we used the afternoon to relax.
That evening we once again chose to eat at The Blue Dolphin, the food is great here, it's a good price and the owners are really friendly. As we sat enjoying a beer, it was clear that the owners were up to something. After Clare was asked how old she would be on Wednesday, it was obvious that they had bought her a cake. The funny part being that they thought she was turning 38, so they quickly disappeared on their moped to change the number candles that they had already got! We both had yet another great meal, but after our food they dimmed the lights, bought over the cake and all sang 'happy birthday'. It was fantastic, and the cake was so beautifully decorated, it even had Clares name and birthday date iced onto it. Adam dutifully played mother, slicing up the birthday cake and shared it our with everyone at the restaurant. We even got bought beers from 2 American girls! The kindness and generosity that the Khmers showed us will never be forgotten.
After too much cake and a few beers, we headed back to our hotel to try and get a good sleep ready for our journey to Siem Reap.
We were pretty hungry, so we set off to The Blue Dolphin for our favourite steak and onion baguettes! We have become regulars here and we were welcomed like old friends. They even remembered that it was Clares birthday in a couple of days.
That afternoon we booked our minivan to take us to Siem Reap the following morning. We had used this company before and knew that if we wanted a comfortable journey, we had to get seats towards the front of the van. Sure enough, we managed to get seats 1 & 2! It was going to be an early start, so we used the afternoon to relax.
That evening we once again chose to eat at The Blue Dolphin, the food is great here, it's a good price and the owners are really friendly. As we sat enjoying a beer, it was clear that the owners were up to something. After Clare was asked how old she would be on Wednesday, it was obvious that they had bought her a cake. The funny part being that they thought she was turning 38, so they quickly disappeared on their moped to change the number candles that they had already got! We both had yet another great meal, but after our food they dimmed the lights, bought over the cake and all sang 'happy birthday'. It was fantastic, and the cake was so beautifully decorated, it even had Clares name and birthday date iced onto it. Adam dutifully played mother, slicing up the birthday cake and shared it our with everyone at the restaurant. We even got bought beers from 2 American girls! The kindness and generosity that the Khmers showed us will never be forgotten.
After too much cake and a few beers, we headed back to our hotel to try and get a good sleep ready for our journey to Siem Reap.
7th April 2009
Our nights sleep was not exactly a relaxing one, the air con had a pretty unleasant smell, so we switched it off and opted for the fan only. As the temperature at night rarely drops below 30, it made for a pretty unpleasant night. Luckily though, there were a few good films on TV to help the hours pass.
Before we knew it we were on the Apsara mini van and on our way to Siem Reap. Seats 1 & 2 actually mean that you are sitting at the front, next to the driver. But it was more comfortable than our previous journey and it did give us an uninterrupted view of the crazy Khmer driving!
5 hours passed quite quickly and soon we pulled into the Apsara office. As we collected our bags, we were surprised to see Sukry, he was our tuk tuk driver for 3 days on our previous visit to Siem Reap. Again, we were greeted like long lost friends, with hugs and handshakes all round. We do wonder what the other people on the van must have thought.
As it was Clares birthday, we decided to push the boat out and opted for The Encore Angkor hotel for our 5 nights stay in Siem Reap. Sukry took us there and we arranged for him to collect us the next day for Clares birthday day out at Angkor!
The owners at the hotel again recognized us and we were given a warm welcome. They had even kept to their promise of providing hair dryers in the rooms, which made Clare very happy! That afternoon we made full use of the swimming pool and we even had it all to ourselves!
The next day we enjoyed the usual high standard of breakfast that we had come to expect here and got ready to once again go to the temples of Angkor. This time it was for Clares birthday and we were going to take it pretty slow this time and try and resist taking more photos. Before we left, Adam gave Clare her birthday card, he had bought this is Phnom Penh and it was made out of recycled elephant poo!! It was very funny and luckily did not smell!
After obtaining our day passes, we soon arrived at Angkor Wat. We soon realized that we would never cease to be amazed by the sheer scale of this temple. It is a wonder how something so magnificent and beautiful was built so many years ago. No wonder the crowds flock to here from a over the world. We walked through and picked a spot for Clare to open her cards from her family. This spot was right by the lotus pond, with Angkor Wat towering in the distance. It was great for Clare to finally open the cards that she had been carrying around since leaving the UK. Clare also received a special gift from Adam, a pure silk purse, purchased from Artisans Angkor in Siem Reap. After opening her cards and presents, we set up our gorillapod to enable us to have a photo taken of us together in front of the temple.
We spent the next 6 hours walking around Angkor Wat, The Bayon and Ta Prhom. When we are at Ta Phrom, Clare decided that people at home would never appreciate the heat we were experiencing here, so decided to get a close up photo of Adams sweaty head. To get a true image of his sweatiness, he decided to jump around a bit in the sun, this was a great idea, until, due to his weight loss, his shorts fell down! Clare was just not quick enough with the camera to capture that moment.
After seeing the temples we got back to our hotel and cooled off in the pool to get ready for our night on the tiles.
Clares birthday was made extra special by receiving phone calls from her family and hearing Kiera and Ewan sing happy birthday. This really was a birthday she would never forget.
We began our evening at The Red Piano bar, this is particularly famous for it's cocktail that was created by Angelina Jolie. She spent time in Cambodia filming Tomb Raider, so the cocktail has been named after the film! The tomb raider cocktail consists of lime juice, soda water and Cointreau. It was pretty nice and easy on the pallet, so we each had 2!
We then ventured to a restaurant that specializes in Khmer BBQs. This is not your average BBQ, it is cooked by yourself, at your table, we opted for chicken, steak, squid, crocodile and snake!! Yes, you've guessed it, crocodile tastes like chicken, but snake on the other hand, had a taste all of it's own, and was surprisingly nice! Clares birthday was finished off with a few beers and a good nights sleep.
The following day we decided it was time for us to purchase something to capture our memories of Cambodia, so we set off with a credit card in tow to find a souvenir for the flat. We had previously spotted a wooden carving of King Jayavaraman, who constructed the temples at Angkor, which we particularly liked, but on closer inspection found that it was far too big and far too heavy to carry around for the next two months. It would also have cost a small fortune to have it shipped home! So we decided to visit our favourite shop, the Artisans Angkor. Upon visiting this shop, you can also get to see the craftsmen skillfully producing the wooden and stone carvings. Everything in this shop is beautiful and at such a high standard, it's not just your usual tourist tat, the only problem is that it does have a high price to match. None the less, we knew exactly what we wanted and made our purchases with the excitement of displaying them when we get home.
As four weeks had passed it was again time for Adam to get his hair cut. We found a local barber and Adam confidently sat in the seat to await his normal dousing of talc before the clippers whirred into action! This time there was not much whirring going on as the barber seemed to be having some difficulty in keeping the guard on. But within seconds he appeared to solve this issue by jamming a piece of cardboard in place. Adam looked nervous ad this method did not work and the guard continued to pop off. As this was an obvious problem, the barber continued the cut with just the blade and the comb. After the hair cut appeared complete, out came the cut throat razor and he continued to remove any stray hair. Little did we know but that service cost extra. Adam paid $5 and we continued on our way, it was at this point that Adam felt his head was feeling a bit uneven. Sure enough, one side was definitely shorter than the other!
Later that afternoon, Clare went into a hair salon to enquirw about hi-lites, it was at this point that the hair dresser asked Adam what had happened to his hair! After much laughter we headed to another barber to get this sorted. While Adam was having his second hair cut and a massage, Clare sat outside reading her book and enjoying the sunshine. Suddenly she heard a distressing noise which made her look up, as she turned to see what was going on, she soon discovered that the noise was 3 live pigs, strapped onto the back of a moped being taken to market! So Dave was right, the pigs are alive! Clare sat there for a second, realizing what a surreal moment this was, and then continued with her book!
The time we had in Siem Reap was just as great as our first visit, we will be very sad to leave, but we have the Apsara mini van collecting us tomorrow afternoon, so it's goodbye Siem Reap again.
Before we knew it we were on the Apsara mini van and on our way to Siem Reap. Seats 1 & 2 actually mean that you are sitting at the front, next to the driver. But it was more comfortable than our previous journey and it did give us an uninterrupted view of the crazy Khmer driving!
5 hours passed quite quickly and soon we pulled into the Apsara office. As we collected our bags, we were surprised to see Sukry, he was our tuk tuk driver for 3 days on our previous visit to Siem Reap. Again, we were greeted like long lost friends, with hugs and handshakes all round. We do wonder what the other people on the van must have thought.
As it was Clares birthday, we decided to push the boat out and opted for The Encore Angkor hotel for our 5 nights stay in Siem Reap. Sukry took us there and we arranged for him to collect us the next day for Clares birthday day out at Angkor!
The owners at the hotel again recognized us and we were given a warm welcome. They had even kept to their promise of providing hair dryers in the rooms, which made Clare very happy! That afternoon we made full use of the swimming pool and we even had it all to ourselves!
The next day we enjoyed the usual high standard of breakfast that we had come to expect here and got ready to once again go to the temples of Angkor. This time it was for Clares birthday and we were going to take it pretty slow this time and try and resist taking more photos. Before we left, Adam gave Clare her birthday card, he had bought this is Phnom Penh and it was made out of recycled elephant poo!! It was very funny and luckily did not smell!
After obtaining our day passes, we soon arrived at Angkor Wat. We soon realized that we would never cease to be amazed by the sheer scale of this temple. It is a wonder how something so magnificent and beautiful was built so many years ago. No wonder the crowds flock to here from a over the world. We walked through and picked a spot for Clare to open her cards from her family. This spot was right by the lotus pond, with Angkor Wat towering in the distance. It was great for Clare to finally open the cards that she had been carrying around since leaving the UK. Clare also received a special gift from Adam, a pure silk purse, purchased from Artisans Angkor in Siem Reap. After opening her cards and presents, we set up our gorillapod to enable us to have a photo taken of us together in front of the temple.
We spent the next 6 hours walking around Angkor Wat, The Bayon and Ta Prhom. When we are at Ta Phrom, Clare decided that people at home would never appreciate the heat we were experiencing here, so decided to get a close up photo of Adams sweaty head. To get a true image of his sweatiness, he decided to jump around a bit in the sun, this was a great idea, until, due to his weight loss, his shorts fell down! Clare was just not quick enough with the camera to capture that moment.
After seeing the temples we got back to our hotel and cooled off in the pool to get ready for our night on the tiles.
Clares birthday was made extra special by receiving phone calls from her family and hearing Kiera and Ewan sing happy birthday. This really was a birthday she would never forget.
We began our evening at The Red Piano bar, this is particularly famous for it's cocktail that was created by Angelina Jolie. She spent time in Cambodia filming Tomb Raider, so the cocktail has been named after the film! The tomb raider cocktail consists of lime juice, soda water and Cointreau. It was pretty nice and easy on the pallet, so we each had 2!
We then ventured to a restaurant that specializes in Khmer BBQs. This is not your average BBQ, it is cooked by yourself, at your table, we opted for chicken, steak, squid, crocodile and snake!! Yes, you've guessed it, crocodile tastes like chicken, but snake on the other hand, had a taste all of it's own, and was surprisingly nice! Clares birthday was finished off with a few beers and a good nights sleep.
The following day we decided it was time for us to purchase something to capture our memories of Cambodia, so we set off with a credit card in tow to find a souvenir for the flat. We had previously spotted a wooden carving of King Jayavaraman, who constructed the temples at Angkor, which we particularly liked, but on closer inspection found that it was far too big and far too heavy to carry around for the next two months. It would also have cost a small fortune to have it shipped home! So we decided to visit our favourite shop, the Artisans Angkor. Upon visiting this shop, you can also get to see the craftsmen skillfully producing the wooden and stone carvings. Everything in this shop is beautiful and at such a high standard, it's not just your usual tourist tat, the only problem is that it does have a high price to match. None the less, we knew exactly what we wanted and made our purchases with the excitement of displaying them when we get home.
As four weeks had passed it was again time for Adam to get his hair cut. We found a local barber and Adam confidently sat in the seat to await his normal dousing of talc before the clippers whirred into action! This time there was not much whirring going on as the barber seemed to be having some difficulty in keeping the guard on. But within seconds he appeared to solve this issue by jamming a piece of cardboard in place. Adam looked nervous ad this method did not work and the guard continued to pop off. As this was an obvious problem, the barber continued the cut with just the blade and the comb. After the hair cut appeared complete, out came the cut throat razor and he continued to remove any stray hair. Little did we know but that service cost extra. Adam paid $5 and we continued on our way, it was at this point that Adam felt his head was feeling a bit uneven. Sure enough, one side was definitely shorter than the other!
Later that afternoon, Clare went into a hair salon to enquirw about hi-lites, it was at this point that the hair dresser asked Adam what had happened to his hair! After much laughter we headed to another barber to get this sorted. While Adam was having his second hair cut and a massage, Clare sat outside reading her book and enjoying the sunshine. Suddenly she heard a distressing noise which made her look up, as she turned to see what was going on, she soon discovered that the noise was 3 live pigs, strapped onto the back of a moped being taken to market! So Dave was right, the pigs are alive! Clare sat there for a second, realizing what a surreal moment this was, and then continued with her book!
The time we had in Siem Reap was just as great as our first visit, we will be very sad to leave, but we have the Apsara mini van collecting us tomorrow afternoon, so it's goodbye Siem Reap again.
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
29th March 2009
With our bags packed, we asked at the reception of the Small Green Bungalows to call us a tuk tuk. They were asking for a rediculous $8 to take us back to Sihanoukville! So we decided to call Li, our previous driver, who sent his brother to pick us up, for a much more reasonable $5. You really have to keep an eye on the pennies in this travelling game!
We arrived back at the Beach Road Hotel only to be given the surprising news that they had no rooms available. After quickly explaining that we had telephoned the previous day, they acknowledged their error and gave us a deluxe room at a standard price, result! We were given a massive room, complete with a fridge, cable TV and even a comfy chair. This was luxury, especially compared to the Small Green Bungalows at Otres! They even had a brand new swimming pool, which was very big and a real added bonus.
We were glad to be back in Sihanoukville, so that evening we returned to our favourite restaurant, The Bayon, where we were welcomed back like old friends. We dropped into the Cool Banana bar for a drink after our dinner and bumped into Dave Pinto again. We thought he'd left as we hadn't seen him since our very first visit, but it turned out he'd been busy getting ready to open a shop called 'Uber', very exciting! After catching up over a few beers we headed back to our lovely deluxe room.
We spent the following day walking on the beach and enjoying the lovely new swimming pool at our hotel. We decided that the time was right for a night in, as we were getting very bored with going out for dinner every night. So, we stocked our fridge up with several Angkor beers and called the Happy Herb Pizza company to order our pizza. In no time at all, we were settled down with our 'Everything' pizza (nicer than any pizzas at home) and were watching some trashy TV - Bliss!
We spent the next few days either in the swimming pool or down at the beach and our evenings were spent sipping G&Ts at The Seahorse, dining at The Bayon and making new friends at The Cool Banana. We had the most spectacular thunderstorms here, regular as clockwork. As soon as the sun had set, the most amazing electrical storms rattled across the sky. We spent a lot of time watching the lightning from the steps of our room and also enjoyed watching the heavy tropical rain pouring from the sky. It was a much needed chance to cool down.
After a couple of days we decided to go for a round of crazy golf on the local course. It was advertised with a picture of Tiger Woods, so our expectations were high, it was howevere somewhat different to what we had imagined, a little... um, smaller! For $2 a round it was a bargain and we did have fun, even though the temperature was nudging 40 degrees and obviously we had gone at the hottest time of day! They also had the best running pool table in town, so we had a good few games, obviously with a beer or 2 to help us cool down!
Our original plan was to visit Kep for Clares upcoming birthday, but after booking a rather expensive, $35 a night bungalow, we discovered that it was fan only and not air con! The owner explained to us that it does get down to a cool 29 degrees inside the rooms, so we quickly cancelled. We changed our plans and decided to head to the temples at Angkor for Clares birthday, as we had enjoyed it there so much before.
After nine relaxing days, during which we made so many new friends, tuk tuk drivers, our waiter from The Bayon, the Khmer girls at Cool Banana and many others, we had a bus booked ready to take us back to Phnom Penh.
We arrived back at the Beach Road Hotel only to be given the surprising news that they had no rooms available. After quickly explaining that we had telephoned the previous day, they acknowledged their error and gave us a deluxe room at a standard price, result! We were given a massive room, complete with a fridge, cable TV and even a comfy chair. This was luxury, especially compared to the Small Green Bungalows at Otres! They even had a brand new swimming pool, which was very big and a real added bonus.
We were glad to be back in Sihanoukville, so that evening we returned to our favourite restaurant, The Bayon, where we were welcomed back like old friends. We dropped into the Cool Banana bar for a drink after our dinner and bumped into Dave Pinto again. We thought he'd left as we hadn't seen him since our very first visit, but it turned out he'd been busy getting ready to open a shop called 'Uber', very exciting! After catching up over a few beers we headed back to our lovely deluxe room.
We spent the following day walking on the beach and enjoying the lovely new swimming pool at our hotel. We decided that the time was right for a night in, as we were getting very bored with going out for dinner every night. So, we stocked our fridge up with several Angkor beers and called the Happy Herb Pizza company to order our pizza. In no time at all, we were settled down with our 'Everything' pizza (nicer than any pizzas at home) and were watching some trashy TV - Bliss!
We spent the next few days either in the swimming pool or down at the beach and our evenings were spent sipping G&Ts at The Seahorse, dining at The Bayon and making new friends at The Cool Banana. We had the most spectacular thunderstorms here, regular as clockwork. As soon as the sun had set, the most amazing electrical storms rattled across the sky. We spent a lot of time watching the lightning from the steps of our room and also enjoyed watching the heavy tropical rain pouring from the sky. It was a much needed chance to cool down.
After a couple of days we decided to go for a round of crazy golf on the local course. It was advertised with a picture of Tiger Woods, so our expectations were high, it was howevere somewhat different to what we had imagined, a little... um, smaller! For $2 a round it was a bargain and we did have fun, even though the temperature was nudging 40 degrees and obviously we had gone at the hottest time of day! They also had the best running pool table in town, so we had a good few games, obviously with a beer or 2 to help us cool down!
Our original plan was to visit Kep for Clares upcoming birthday, but after booking a rather expensive, $35 a night bungalow, we discovered that it was fan only and not air con! The owner explained to us that it does get down to a cool 29 degrees inside the rooms, so we quickly cancelled. We changed our plans and decided to head to the temples at Angkor for Clares birthday, as we had enjoyed it there so much before.
After nine relaxing days, during which we made so many new friends, tuk tuk drivers, our waiter from The Bayon, the Khmer girls at Cool Banana and many others, we had a bus booked ready to take us back to Phnom Penh.
27th March 2009
After a somewhat disturbed sleep courtesy of our smelly bed, we quickly ate breakfast and arranged a tuk tuk to take us to Otres beach.
It was a pretty crazy journey, unfortunately the road is only half finished and the remainder consists of a rocky dirt track. It was a very slow and bumpy ride, but very scenic, we wven went through some very poor Khmer villages. These villages were made from several wooden shacks, where you could see entire families living in only one big room, some didn't even have the luxury of front doors. It is so much more of a simpler life here.
Our tuk tuk driver was a likeable guy called Li, he dropped us off at the Small Green Bungalows and gave us his mobile number just in case we needed a lift anywhere. This was pretty useful as there were not many tuk tuk's at Otres beach.
We excitedly checked in and were shown to our bungalow, which was only inches from the beach. From the outside, these bungalows looked so well built, made from wood and palm leaves with beautiful glass patio doors all along the front. Unfortunately as we entered our bungalow, our hearts sank. Inside we found a basic double bed with an ugly mosquito net suspended over it, all sitting upon a very plain and rough concrete floor. The bathroom was very basic, no hot water as expected, just very shabby looking. The plumbing was interesting or at least the lack of it. All the waste water trickled across the concrete floor, which just flowed outside under a small gap at the bottom of the wall. Not too sure how hygenic this was... and did we mention the smell? We didn't have the luxury of air con here, but at least we had a fan!
We reckoned this would be just about bearable as we were so close to the gorgeous beach, which seemed to look even more beautiful this time.
So, we went and found some lunch in a nearby restaurant and spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach, having an occassional swim and admiring the picture postcard view. As the evening drew closer, we sat on the beach, watching the beautiful sunset unfold, needless to say with cold beers in our hands.
In the evening we ventured out to get some food. It was very dark around Otres at night, they don't have much electricity here and when they do it is generator powered, so we set off down the beach armed with our torch. The real bonus of having hardly any lights and electricity is that the stars looked so bright and amazing in the sky. We ended up back in the restaurant that we ate lunch in earlier and had some lovely home cooked Khmer food. The portions were huge, Clare had 26 king prawns in her seafood noodles! We got talking to the owner of the restaurant, he was a guy from Southport called Russell, he'd had been living in Cambodia for many years with his Khmer wife. After a good chat and a few Angkor beers we headed back to our bungalow down the beach.
We were feeling pretty tired, so we decided to get some sleep. We turned our fan on to cool us down, but it was in such a strange position that you could only feel it on your toes! It felt so hot in our bungalow, the night time temperature was around 30 degrees, but somehow felt hotter inside as there were no windows or ventilation. It didn't help matters that the bathroom smell seemed to get worse during the night!
We tried valiantly to get some sleep, not only was this impossible due to the heat and constant sweating, but all the strange noises and giant beetles that were crawling through our walls and buzzing around our heads! Clare even tried lying the wrong way up the bed to get some more action from the fan, which worked quite well until the generator ran out of power at 4am!
After a terrible nights sleep (Clare even saw the sunrise) all was forgiven as we stepped outside for breakfast. What a wonderful view we had, this was without doubt the most beautiful beach we had seen on this trip, it even rivals the Maldives.
That morning we went for a stroll down the beach and saw many huge jellyfish that had been washed up onto the shore during the night. Neither of us had ever seen jellyfish that big before, but it did put us off swimming in the sea a little.
In the afternoon we just simply relaxed on the beach, swam in the crystal clear sea and luckily there were no jellyfish to be seen.
We thought that maybe it would be worth putting up with our rather basic accommodation, just to have wonderful days like this. But after we watched another beautiful sunset and returned to our room, realizing that we had another unpleasant night ahead of us, we phoned our faithful hotel in Sihanoukville and booked a room for the following night.
We had an entertaining night at Russels restaurant again, he even got his live and loaded M16 machine gun out for us to see. His brother in law is in the police force, which is why he has the gun, and he apparently has been known to shoot some rounds off at the sea at night!
After yet another hot and sleepless night, we wearily packed our belongings and were more than ready to leave.
It was a pretty crazy journey, unfortunately the road is only half finished and the remainder consists of a rocky dirt track. It was a very slow and bumpy ride, but very scenic, we wven went through some very poor Khmer villages. These villages were made from several wooden shacks, where you could see entire families living in only one big room, some didn't even have the luxury of front doors. It is so much more of a simpler life here.
Our tuk tuk driver was a likeable guy called Li, he dropped us off at the Small Green Bungalows and gave us his mobile number just in case we needed a lift anywhere. This was pretty useful as there were not many tuk tuk's at Otres beach.
We excitedly checked in and were shown to our bungalow, which was only inches from the beach. From the outside, these bungalows looked so well built, made from wood and palm leaves with beautiful glass patio doors all along the front. Unfortunately as we entered our bungalow, our hearts sank. Inside we found a basic double bed with an ugly mosquito net suspended over it, all sitting upon a very plain and rough concrete floor. The bathroom was very basic, no hot water as expected, just very shabby looking. The plumbing was interesting or at least the lack of it. All the waste water trickled across the concrete floor, which just flowed outside under a small gap at the bottom of the wall. Not too sure how hygenic this was... and did we mention the smell? We didn't have the luxury of air con here, but at least we had a fan!
We reckoned this would be just about bearable as we were so close to the gorgeous beach, which seemed to look even more beautiful this time.
So, we went and found some lunch in a nearby restaurant and spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach, having an occassional swim and admiring the picture postcard view. As the evening drew closer, we sat on the beach, watching the beautiful sunset unfold, needless to say with cold beers in our hands.
In the evening we ventured out to get some food. It was very dark around Otres at night, they don't have much electricity here and when they do it is generator powered, so we set off down the beach armed with our torch. The real bonus of having hardly any lights and electricity is that the stars looked so bright and amazing in the sky. We ended up back in the restaurant that we ate lunch in earlier and had some lovely home cooked Khmer food. The portions were huge, Clare had 26 king prawns in her seafood noodles! We got talking to the owner of the restaurant, he was a guy from Southport called Russell, he'd had been living in Cambodia for many years with his Khmer wife. After a good chat and a few Angkor beers we headed back to our bungalow down the beach.
We were feeling pretty tired, so we decided to get some sleep. We turned our fan on to cool us down, but it was in such a strange position that you could only feel it on your toes! It felt so hot in our bungalow, the night time temperature was around 30 degrees, but somehow felt hotter inside as there were no windows or ventilation. It didn't help matters that the bathroom smell seemed to get worse during the night!
We tried valiantly to get some sleep, not only was this impossible due to the heat and constant sweating, but all the strange noises and giant beetles that were crawling through our walls and buzzing around our heads! Clare even tried lying the wrong way up the bed to get some more action from the fan, which worked quite well until the generator ran out of power at 4am!
After a terrible nights sleep (Clare even saw the sunrise) all was forgiven as we stepped outside for breakfast. What a wonderful view we had, this was without doubt the most beautiful beach we had seen on this trip, it even rivals the Maldives.
That morning we went for a stroll down the beach and saw many huge jellyfish that had been washed up onto the shore during the night. Neither of us had ever seen jellyfish that big before, but it did put us off swimming in the sea a little.
In the afternoon we just simply relaxed on the beach, swam in the crystal clear sea and luckily there were no jellyfish to be seen.
We thought that maybe it would be worth putting up with our rather basic accommodation, just to have wonderful days like this. But after we watched another beautiful sunset and returned to our room, realizing that we had another unpleasant night ahead of us, we phoned our faithful hotel in Sihanoukville and booked a room for the following night.
We had an entertaining night at Russels restaurant again, he even got his live and loaded M16 machine gun out for us to see. His brother in law is in the police force, which is why he has the gun, and he apparently has been known to shoot some rounds off at the sea at night!
After yet another hot and sleepless night, we wearily packed our belongings and were more than ready to leave.
25th March 2009
Our first choice of bus company, Paramount Angkor Express either left Phnom Penh too early or too late, so we opted for the super cheap option of Sorya Company at the bargain price of $4.50. it was leaving at the reasonable time of 10am, so we managed to have ourselves a fairly civillized morning, with even time to eat breakfast.
It was a quick journey only spoilt by the fact that the overhead air con decided to leak towards the end of the journey, resulting in a rush of water pouring into Clares lap! That's what you get for bagging the window seat yet again! Adam tried to catch the water in his cupped hands, but alas most of it poured onto Clares lap as she dozed! We had the usual 20 minute break at a roadside layby, where we were joined by two cows meandering leisurely around, this was all too a familiar sight for us now in Cambodia.
We soon arrived in Sihanoukville and knowing how it all worked from our previous visit, we were soon on a tuk tuk speeding towards the Beach Road Hotel. As we checked in, the reception staff informed us that they had a power cut and had been without any electricity for 2 hours. They were unsure how much longer it would last for, so we quickly left our luggage in our room and headed straight back to the bar. It wasn't very pleasant in our room without a fan, air con or even a working shower as the temperature in the shade was in the late thirties, nevermind in an unventilated concrete hotel room!
We sat in the bar with sweat pouring from us, as we ate a well needed lunch with ice cold drinks. There was no breeze at all and without any ceiling fans working, felt pretty unpleasant in there. We waited and we waited, but still there was no sign of power. At around 5pm we gave up waiting and decided to return to our powerless room regardless. As soon as we entered the sauna like room, we stripped down to our underwear and opened all the windows to try and let in the non existent breeze outside. Unable to relax or lie down, we decided to play cards to try and take our minds off the unbearable heat. After a few hot and sticky card games, a small miracle occurred. The fan suddenly burst into life, we had power! Quickly we turned on the air con to it's lowest setting and enjoyed the cool air all around us!
After eventually cooling down we had a very good evening. We visited our favourite restaurant, The Bayon, and enjoyed a tasty Amok and then rounded off the evening with a good few games of pool at our hotel
After a decent sleep, only marred by the fact that we had a particularly smelly bed, it had a lovely musty aroma, we set about finding ourselves somewhere to stay on Otres beach. Before we arrived in Sihanoukville, we decided we would like to spend most of our time on Otres, so we set about calling our favourite resort, the Small Green Bungalows. Amazingly they had a bungalow free for the following day and even better, they had dropped their prices to only $15 a night!
We couldn't believe our luck, as during our last visit we struggled so much in getting a booking with them. So we quickly booked the room and spent the rest of the day shopping for supplies, as Otres beach is very remote and has no shops at all.
It was a quick journey only spoilt by the fact that the overhead air con decided to leak towards the end of the journey, resulting in a rush of water pouring into Clares lap! That's what you get for bagging the window seat yet again! Adam tried to catch the water in his cupped hands, but alas most of it poured onto Clares lap as she dozed! We had the usual 20 minute break at a roadside layby, where we were joined by two cows meandering leisurely around, this was all too a familiar sight for us now in Cambodia.
We soon arrived in Sihanoukville and knowing how it all worked from our previous visit, we were soon on a tuk tuk speeding towards the Beach Road Hotel. As we checked in, the reception staff informed us that they had a power cut and had been without any electricity for 2 hours. They were unsure how much longer it would last for, so we quickly left our luggage in our room and headed straight back to the bar. It wasn't very pleasant in our room without a fan, air con or even a working shower as the temperature in the shade was in the late thirties, nevermind in an unventilated concrete hotel room!
We sat in the bar with sweat pouring from us, as we ate a well needed lunch with ice cold drinks. There was no breeze at all and without any ceiling fans working, felt pretty unpleasant in there. We waited and we waited, but still there was no sign of power. At around 5pm we gave up waiting and decided to return to our powerless room regardless. As soon as we entered the sauna like room, we stripped down to our underwear and opened all the windows to try and let in the non existent breeze outside. Unable to relax or lie down, we decided to play cards to try and take our minds off the unbearable heat. After a few hot and sticky card games, a small miracle occurred. The fan suddenly burst into life, we had power! Quickly we turned on the air con to it's lowest setting and enjoyed the cool air all around us!
After eventually cooling down we had a very good evening. We visited our favourite restaurant, The Bayon, and enjoyed a tasty Amok and then rounded off the evening with a good few games of pool at our hotel
After a decent sleep, only marred by the fact that we had a particularly smelly bed, it had a lovely musty aroma, we set about finding ourselves somewhere to stay on Otres beach. Before we arrived in Sihanoukville, we decided we would like to spend most of our time on Otres, so we set about calling our favourite resort, the Small Green Bungalows. Amazingly they had a bungalow free for the following day and even better, they had dropped their prices to only $15 a night!
We couldn't believe our luck, as during our last visit we struggled so much in getting a booking with them. So we quickly booked the room and spent the rest of the day shopping for supplies, as Otres beach is very remote and has no shops at all.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
23rd March 2009
We were waiting at the travel agents in Saigon at 6.30am for our lift to the bus station to arrive. We waited anxiously for 20 minutes, sensing that there was some kind of problem occuring. We were told that there was a problem with the minivan, even though we had seen it drive past half empty ten minutes earlier and told to get on a moped with our backpacks. We refused, as not only has Clare never ridden pillion before, we did not think it was a safe thing to do. So they asked us to walk, as it was only 10 minutes away. Thankfully they hadn't left without us and we were soon in our seats and heading towards the Cambodia border. After a few minutes someone came down the bus to collect our passports and asked for a $24 fee for the Cambodia visa. This was a but strange as the actual fee is $20, so we maintained that we would do this ourselves, rather than pay the $4 each fir this service. Soon we were at the Vietnamese immigration and after another long and chaotic wait, we had our exit stamp in our passports. Then it was a short hop on the bus and we were at the Cambodia border. as we were completing our visas ourselves, we were pointed towards the visa desk, within a couple of mintues, we had our new visas and our passports stamped, all alot quicker than the passport from the bus and also saving us $8. As we left the immigration building, we looked around and couldn't seem to see our bus. The man from the bus company pointed to the road and told us the bus had left, then pointed to a moped and told us both to get on and catch the bus up! Both of us were in shock, afterall, all our luggage was on that bus! Having no option, we got on our 2 seperate mopeds and we started hurtling to catch up with the bus! Down a very busy road we went, weaving in and out of trucks and bikes, until we finally saw the bus had pulled into a food area. We got off the bikes and wobbled up to the bus. This was a baptism if fire for Clare, we both enjoyed it, but when you are not wearing a helmet and just shorts and a t-shirt, it is a little worrying! We got the impression the bus company had done this on purpose, as it makes their visa service seem worthwhile, but we did save $8 after all!!! The rest of the journey was thankfully not as eventful and by lunchtime we were back in Phnom Penh.
We were warmly welcomed back at the Super Star hotel, quickly checked in and made our way to the Blue Dolphin Restaurant for a tastey steak and onion baguette!
We had decided that our time back in Cambodia should be spent relaxing and doing less touristy things, as we had spent so long travelling in the past four months. After 2 nights in Phnom Penh we booked a bus ticket to take us back to Sihanoukville, so we could have some time by the beach.
We were warmly welcomed back at the Super Star hotel, quickly checked in and made our way to the Blue Dolphin Restaurant for a tastey steak and onion baguette!
We had decided that our time back in Cambodia should be spent relaxing and doing less touristy things, as we had spent so long travelling in the past four months. After 2 nights in Phnom Penh we booked a bus ticket to take us back to Sihanoukville, so we could have some time by the beach.
20th March 2009
We had the luxury of a 1.30pm bus departure from Mui Ne, so we had a pretty relaxing morning and were waiting for our bus at 1pm. We were surprised when the bus arrived as it was a sleeper bus! They were very different from all other buses we had taken before, as they had small bed like compartments that you could lie down in. In true Vietnamese style, we were asked to put our own bags in the luggage hold and went about finding ourselves a seat. We were soon on our way and were finding the journey a pretty comfortable one, that is if it wasn't for the constant horn beeping that the driver was doing. They seem to be very horn happy in most if South East Asia, but Vietnam was one if the worst. Not that Clare was bored, but she counted over 50 beeps in a minute! Nice and peaceful!!
After a long but comfortable 5 and a half hours, we arrived back in the mayhem of Saigon. Luckily our hotel, The Orient, was just down the road, so we quickly checked in. This was a big mistake as it was worse than we remembered! The bedcwas hard and the room was very small, but we reckoned it would be fine for one night. We were wrong! At 2am we were still awake and just could not sleep on this rock hard bed, so we thought we would stay awake and find ourselves a new hotel at day break. Finally sleep took hold of us at 5am and we grabbed a couple of hours before we set about looking for a new hotel. After a quick walk around Saigon, we managed to find ourselves a decent hotel called 'Lien Ha', so we grabbed our backpacks and checked in. It was much more comfortable than the last place and even had a rooftop pool! After a little rest, we decided to check out the pool. As we made our way up to the 8th floor, past the scruffy laundry rooms, we found the gorgeous pool. There was noone up here and the pool was a very funny colour, it looked like a basin full of stagnant water, complete with floating insects! Needless to say, we never ventured into the water, as we didn't need a chemical peel!
We spent 2 nights at this hotel, trying to figure out what our next move was and desperately trying to find some food with flavour, until we decided that our best course of action was to leave Vietnam and head back to Cambodia. We bought a straight through ticket to Phnom Penh for the following morning and were looking forward to eating a nice steak and onion baguette in our favourite restaurant the Blue Dolphin.
After a long but comfortable 5 and a half hours, we arrived back in the mayhem of Saigon. Luckily our hotel, The Orient, was just down the road, so we quickly checked in. This was a big mistake as it was worse than we remembered! The bedcwas hard and the room was very small, but we reckoned it would be fine for one night. We were wrong! At 2am we were still awake and just could not sleep on this rock hard bed, so we thought we would stay awake and find ourselves a new hotel at day break. Finally sleep took hold of us at 5am and we grabbed a couple of hours before we set about looking for a new hotel. After a quick walk around Saigon, we managed to find ourselves a decent hotel called 'Lien Ha', so we grabbed our backpacks and checked in. It was much more comfortable than the last place and even had a rooftop pool! After a little rest, we decided to check out the pool. As we made our way up to the 8th floor, past the scruffy laundry rooms, we found the gorgeous pool. There was noone up here and the pool was a very funny colour, it looked like a basin full of stagnant water, complete with floating insects! Needless to say, we never ventured into the water, as we didn't need a chemical peel!
We spent 2 nights at this hotel, trying to figure out what our next move was and desperately trying to find some food with flavour, until we decided that our best course of action was to leave Vietnam and head back to Cambodia. We bought a straight through ticket to Phnom Penh for the following morning and were looking forward to eating a nice steak and onion baguette in our favourite restaurant the Blue Dolphin.
Monday, 30 March 2009
15th March 2009
Our bus journey to Mui Ne was not the most comfortable we'd had, but thankfully it was only for five and a half hours. As we approached Mui Ne it was obvious that it was a quiet beach side town and our fears of another Koh Samui were quickly washed away.
As we had made a reservation at Sunshine Beach Resort, our bus was able to drop us off right outside our resort, which saved us the price of a taxi.
We had a beautiful seaview room here with a balcony practically over the sand, it was probably one of the best rooms we had stayed in so far. It was well over our budget, but we felt we deserved a little luxury as this was now hotel number 42 on our travels.
Breakfast was included in the room price, so on our first morning we decided to avoid the eggs and order some cornflakes. When they arrived we realized this was a big mistake as not only were they anemic in colour and pretty bad in taste, they were covered with long life milk! Thankfully there was an endless supply of toast and fruit, so we filled up on this!
We spent 5 nights here and pretty much relaxed all the time were here, which was a good job really, as there wasn't much else to do. It was nice not having to get any early buses and luckily breakfast was served until 10am. The best part of this resort for Clare was that the room included a hairdryer! It's funny how it's the simple things you miss when you are away from home.
Eating in Mui Ne was just as difficult as it was in Saigon, we were amazed at how bad the food was. Yet again the meals were pretty tasteless, totally lacking in flavour and also the people were pretty miserable too. They only seemed pleased to see your money, rather than being warm and welcoming you to their country.
We had a private beach at the resort, for the usage of the residents only, which was a good job really, as it wasn't on the large side! It was extremely windy on the beach every day, which was great for the local kite surfers, but for us it only led to streaming and watery eyes when we tried to catch a few rays. The wind led to the sea being very rough, but this wasn't the only problem, the sand disapeared as soon as you walked into the sea, giving way to shingle and broken shells underfoot. The massive waves coupled with the shingle, all made for a pretty unpleasant attempt at cooling off!
We didn't really enjoy our time here too much, it seems to be a great place if you are a kite surfer and enjoy eating bland food, but unfortunately we are not those people. Our time here did give us ample opportunity to research how best we could reach the north of the country, which is where much of the beautiful countryside happens to be. We discovered that Vietnam is a very hard country to travel around and the roads are far from straight and very slow. It would take a massive 33 hours of buses, including three overnight journeys to travel only 1200km up to the north and this was something we were not prepared to do. Especially as so far we weren't totally enjoying our Vietnam experience.
After spending five nights here and unwilling to get on another overnight bus, we had a bus ticket booked to take us back to Saigon in the morning.
As we had made a reservation at Sunshine Beach Resort, our bus was able to drop us off right outside our resort, which saved us the price of a taxi.
We had a beautiful seaview room here with a balcony practically over the sand, it was probably one of the best rooms we had stayed in so far. It was well over our budget, but we felt we deserved a little luxury as this was now hotel number 42 on our travels.
Breakfast was included in the room price, so on our first morning we decided to avoid the eggs and order some cornflakes. When they arrived we realized this was a big mistake as not only were they anemic in colour and pretty bad in taste, they were covered with long life milk! Thankfully there was an endless supply of toast and fruit, so we filled up on this!
We spent 5 nights here and pretty much relaxed all the time were here, which was a good job really, as there wasn't much else to do. It was nice not having to get any early buses and luckily breakfast was served until 10am. The best part of this resort for Clare was that the room included a hairdryer! It's funny how it's the simple things you miss when you are away from home.
Eating in Mui Ne was just as difficult as it was in Saigon, we were amazed at how bad the food was. Yet again the meals were pretty tasteless, totally lacking in flavour and also the people were pretty miserable too. They only seemed pleased to see your money, rather than being warm and welcoming you to their country.
We had a private beach at the resort, for the usage of the residents only, which was a good job really, as it wasn't on the large side! It was extremely windy on the beach every day, which was great for the local kite surfers, but for us it only led to streaming and watery eyes when we tried to catch a few rays. The wind led to the sea being very rough, but this wasn't the only problem, the sand disapeared as soon as you walked into the sea, giving way to shingle and broken shells underfoot. The massive waves coupled with the shingle, all made for a pretty unpleasant attempt at cooling off!
We didn't really enjoy our time here too much, it seems to be a great place if you are a kite surfer and enjoy eating bland food, but unfortunately we are not those people. Our time here did give us ample opportunity to research how best we could reach the north of the country, which is where much of the beautiful countryside happens to be. We discovered that Vietnam is a very hard country to travel around and the roads are far from straight and very slow. It would take a massive 33 hours of buses, including three overnight journeys to travel only 1200km up to the north and this was something we were not prepared to do. Especially as so far we weren't totally enjoying our Vietnam experience.
After spending five nights here and unwilling to get on another overnight bus, we had a bus ticket booked to take us back to Saigon in the morning.
8th March 2009
After a long and not very pleasant bus ride we arrived once again in Phnom Penh. We headed straight to the HRH Hotel where the staff were very welcoming and recognized us from our previous stay there. Unfortunately the room they gave us was not anywhere as nice as the last time we stayed, the shower even broke when we tried to use it, so we only stayed for the one night and moved to the Super Star Hotel across the road the following morning.
At our new hotel we booked a bus for the next day to a town called Kratie. It was around 300km northeast of Phnom Penh and they have a small colony of freshwater dolphins living in the river, which was the main reason why we wanted to visit the town. We were given various reports on how long this journey was going to take, it varied between 5 and 8 hours, so we had an early night and prepared for our bus to pick us up at the hotel at 7am.
The alarms went off at 6am, the following morning and we both began to get ready. It was obvious that neither of us were in the mood for yet another long journey, so Adams skills came into play again and he used the poorly girlfriend excuse for us not to get on the bus. The hotel staff were very understanding and kind and they even gave us our money back!
As we had decided to make a move towards Vietnam, we had to arrange our entry visas, as you cannot get them as you enter the country. Our hotel offered a visa service, obviously at a fee, which meant they did all the work for us and we didn't have to queue up at the embassy all day. Seeing as it was only a few dollars more, we decided to let them arrange our Vietnam visas, but it did mean leaving our passports with them for the day.
As we had previously visited all the tourist spots in Phnom Penh, that afternoon we decided to visit the Cambodian art and crafts street, which was very near our hotel. We had a good look around at all the fine silks and wooden carvings and we eventually decided to treat ourselves to a late Christmas present as we'd been given some dollars as a gift. Clare bought herself a lovely silk handbag and matching purse and Adam treated himself to a rather tasteful silk dressing gown!
Later that evening, when we received our passports back with our new Vietnamese visas inside, we noticed that the 30 day period started immediately and not on the date of entry into the country.
We didn't want to lose too many days from our visas, so there was no rest for us and we immediately booked a bus for the following morning to take us across the Cambodian border, into Vietnam and through to Saigon.
After another tasty dinner at the Blue Dolphin restaurant, an early night was in store for us so we could get a good sleep ready for our early bus to Vietnam.
At our new hotel we booked a bus for the next day to a town called Kratie. It was around 300km northeast of Phnom Penh and they have a small colony of freshwater dolphins living in the river, which was the main reason why we wanted to visit the town. We were given various reports on how long this journey was going to take, it varied between 5 and 8 hours, so we had an early night and prepared for our bus to pick us up at the hotel at 7am.
The alarms went off at 6am, the following morning and we both began to get ready. It was obvious that neither of us were in the mood for yet another long journey, so Adams skills came into play again and he used the poorly girlfriend excuse for us not to get on the bus. The hotel staff were very understanding and kind and they even gave us our money back!
As we had decided to make a move towards Vietnam, we had to arrange our entry visas, as you cannot get them as you enter the country. Our hotel offered a visa service, obviously at a fee, which meant they did all the work for us and we didn't have to queue up at the embassy all day. Seeing as it was only a few dollars more, we decided to let them arrange our Vietnam visas, but it did mean leaving our passports with them for the day.
As we had previously visited all the tourist spots in Phnom Penh, that afternoon we decided to visit the Cambodian art and crafts street, which was very near our hotel. We had a good look around at all the fine silks and wooden carvings and we eventually decided to treat ourselves to a late Christmas present as we'd been given some dollars as a gift. Clare bought herself a lovely silk handbag and matching purse and Adam treated himself to a rather tasteful silk dressing gown!
Later that evening, when we received our passports back with our new Vietnamese visas inside, we noticed that the 30 day period started immediately and not on the date of entry into the country.
We didn't want to lose too many days from our visas, so there was no rest for us and we immediately booked a bus for the following morning to take us across the Cambodian border, into Vietnam and through to Saigon.
After another tasty dinner at the Blue Dolphin restaurant, an early night was in store for us so we could get a good sleep ready for our early bus to Vietnam.
11th March 2009
We were being collected from our hotel at 8am, so we had a quick bite to eat and once again gathered our bags up to wait outside for our bus. We were both feeling a little nervous about going to Vietnam, we always seem to feel this way when we change countries, and also we were not really in the mood for yet another long bus ride. After all, we had already clocked up over 81 hours on buses by now and our enthusiasm for them had started to fade.
Our minivan arrived in time, and before we knew it, after they had squashed 15 people into 12 seats, we arrived at what they called a bus station! We were not very impressed with the look of our bus as it was the oldest and most run down looking one there. But we quickly loaded our bags on board, found our seats and finally began our journey into Vietnam.
Unlike our border crossing into Cambodia, this time we had someone to guide us through the whole procedure and we could even stay on the same bus for the entire journey. This did make it much less confusing, as our guide explained every step in detail, but by no means did it make it less disorganized!
Our exit out of Cambodia was pretty straightforward, our guide took all our passports, got them stamped for us and all we had to do was queue up outside the bus and wait for our names to be called. It was pretty quick and easy really. Then came the Vietnamese immigration. We had to take all our luggage into the passport control building, which looked like a very imposing communist structure. We all had to wait in here while they stamped our passports. You'd think it would be quite a quick and easy procedure as we all held visas for the country, but it took ages, as they let all the Vietnamese push past us and jump the queue! This painful process took over an hour and it was not the friendliest greeting we have ever had into a new country. Before we could leave with our stamped passports, we had to get all our luggage scanned, just to ensure we were not entering Vietnam with any drugs or weapons!
Finally we arrived in Saigon and it was pretty obvious that we were in a very big and very busy city. We had read that the traffic here was heavily congested and that the roads are hellish to cross. But this didn't prepare us for the reality of what we saw! It was crazy, masses of mopeds all over the place, scooting in and out of buses, up on the pavements, taking not a blind bit of notice of the traffic lights, never mind two bewildered and weary westerners trying to cross the road!
As we stood by the bus, trying to work out where we were on the map, we approached by a gentlemen showing us a business card for his hotel. As it looked pretty nice and was cheaper than the hotel we had booked, we followed him to see what it was like. At this point we were very grateful for his company as he was able to guide us across the road. There appeared to be no real skill involved in this, just a leap of faith and to walk blindly into the oncoming traffic, while raising your hand!
The first hotel he showed us was not really what we wanted as the room was very small, so he showed us to another of his hotels a few doors down the road. Adam went to look at this room and quickly returned with a positive note. We quickly checked in and took our bags up to our room, it had a balcony, so we both stepped outside to view our surroundings. We were feeling pretty nervous about this hotel as it was down a very dark and claustrophobic alley and we were feeling quite concerned about our safety down there. It didn't help that we had read in our guide book that Saigon was the most crime ridden city in Vietnam. But as the room was very nice, we thought it would do for one night for us at the very least. As we stood on the balcony we noticed a man calling to us from the next building. He told us that he lived there and proceeded to warn us that we must lock our door and never leave it open as people will jump across the balconies and get into our room. Nervously we asked him if the alley was a safe place and he replied saying that he'd seen a few bag snatches but only heard a couple of gun shots! We thanked him for his advice, retreated to our room, picked up our back packs and got the hell out of there! The man that showed us to the previous two hotels re-appeard and this time offered to show us another hotel on the main road where we would feel safer. It was Clares turn to look at the room, but this one was very dark and dingy. When she asked to see a room with a window, the man swished back the curtains to show her that there was indeed a window there. Wow! What a view! The next building was less than a foot away and all you could see was brick! After politely declining the room and after the owner was quite rude to us, we set out in the sweltering humidity to find the hotel that we had originally booked.
Eventually we got there, both a sweaty mess, but both glad that neither of his had been run over. We were welcomed with a lovely ice cold drink, which all seemed very positive until they told us that they had emailed us the previous evening informing us that they were now full! The hotel were kind enough to show us to a hotel that they recommend, but unfortunately this one again was down a dark alley and quite a depressing room. We thanked them for their help, but declined their offer.
After evaluating our situation, we decided the best course of action was for Clare to stay with the bags and for Adam to head off with the lonely planet in hand, to find us a decent hotel. In this heat and humidity it is very hard work walking around aimlessly with your back packs on, so off Adam went, a man with a mission! After a long half an hour and just as it was starting to get dark, Adam returned looking very relieved, saying that he had found us a room. We had to move quick though, as they would only hold it for half an hour.
It was a very hot fifteen minute walk, but we arrived at the hotel just in time! We obviously looked very hot and sweaty because the reception staff told us to take a shower before we checked in! This made us laugh, we've never been so bluntly told that we needed a shower! We couldn't help but agree with them, so up we went to our room at the 'An An 2 Hotel', it was more upmarket than what we were used to, it even had a lift!
We were still feeling pretty tired from all our sight seeing in Cambodia, and as Saigon is a pretty crazy place, we used the next day to rest, get our bearings in the city and work out where we might like to visit in the country. It was becoming quite clear that travelling around vietnam was quite difficult, it is a very long country and the only way to travel is by several overnight buses. Something we were keen to avoid.
The following day we ventured out on a day trip to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels. These were an underground system of tunnels with numerous levels that were used by the Vietcong during the Vietnam war. There are over 200km of tunnels stretching across the surrounding farmland and were used as living quarters, meeting rooms, weapon making, hospitals and defending the villages against the American army. People used to live in these tunnels for months at a time! It was truly an amazing sight to see. The tunnels have been made slightly larger in size to allow western tourists to enter them. Clare did not really want to venture in any of the tunnels, but Adam gave them a good try. Even though they had increased the size of them, it still meant that Adam had to crawl through these tiny tunnels on his hands and knees. After a good effort, he decided that being down the deep, dark and confined Cu Chi tunnels was not for him and made a swift exit.
After the tunnels, we were shown all the original traps that the Vietcong used in the jungle. They were all pretty barbaric, but very cleverly designed and the most ironic thing was that they were made from the shrapnel of the bombs dropped by the Americans!
Finally we followed our tour guide who explained we were going to take a break, we could use this time to use the bathroom, have a coffee, buy an ice cream or shoot some bullets! This is where Adams eyes lit up. You had to go to a cabinet where you choose your gun and then over to a till where you buy your bullets! Adam chose an M16 machine gun, Rambo eat your heart out! He was aiming for the targets, but in all truth he didn't really care if he hit them, he was firing an M16 in Vietnam and that's what mattered!
After all the men had proved themselves, we were taken to the kitchen area of the tunnels. These would have been underground, but for tourism they had recreated it at ground level. We were given a taste of what the Vietcong soldiers would have survived on, Vietnamese tea and boiled tapioca. Neither of them were bursting with flavour or taste, but the tea was very refreshing.
On our way back to town, we were taken to a factory where crafts were made by disabled war victims and the profits go to those affected by the war. It did seem like a typical tourist trap as we didn't see many disabled people and we couldn't help see it in a cynical light.
The following day we took a taxi to see the Reunification Palace in Saigon. This was quite an interesting place to visit as it was the old central government that ruled Vietnam prior to the war. It is unique in the fact that it is preserved in almost the same state it was in when the Vietcong liberated Saigon from the Americans in 1979. It felt like you were almost in a bad guys lair from an old James Bond film, they even had an old US helicopter still on the helipad and tanks in the front grounds!
Our opinion on Vietnam at this early point was far from a positive one. Eating out was not easy at all, the food was very bland and lacking in flavour and the people were quite unfriendly as a rule. Saigon was also far too hectic to stay for any length of time. We were feeling quite disappointed as we had high hopes for this country. So, we booked a bus for the following day to take us to a beachside town called Mui Ne where hopefully we can relax for a few days and work our out where we are going next.
Our minivan arrived in time, and before we knew it, after they had squashed 15 people into 12 seats, we arrived at what they called a bus station! We were not very impressed with the look of our bus as it was the oldest and most run down looking one there. But we quickly loaded our bags on board, found our seats and finally began our journey into Vietnam.
Unlike our border crossing into Cambodia, this time we had someone to guide us through the whole procedure and we could even stay on the same bus for the entire journey. This did make it much less confusing, as our guide explained every step in detail, but by no means did it make it less disorganized!
Our exit out of Cambodia was pretty straightforward, our guide took all our passports, got them stamped for us and all we had to do was queue up outside the bus and wait for our names to be called. It was pretty quick and easy really. Then came the Vietnamese immigration. We had to take all our luggage into the passport control building, which looked like a very imposing communist structure. We all had to wait in here while they stamped our passports. You'd think it would be quite a quick and easy procedure as we all held visas for the country, but it took ages, as they let all the Vietnamese push past us and jump the queue! This painful process took over an hour and it was not the friendliest greeting we have ever had into a new country. Before we could leave with our stamped passports, we had to get all our luggage scanned, just to ensure we were not entering Vietnam with any drugs or weapons!
Finally we arrived in Saigon and it was pretty obvious that we were in a very big and very busy city. We had read that the traffic here was heavily congested and that the roads are hellish to cross. But this didn't prepare us for the reality of what we saw! It was crazy, masses of mopeds all over the place, scooting in and out of buses, up on the pavements, taking not a blind bit of notice of the traffic lights, never mind two bewildered and weary westerners trying to cross the road!
As we stood by the bus, trying to work out where we were on the map, we approached by a gentlemen showing us a business card for his hotel. As it looked pretty nice and was cheaper than the hotel we had booked, we followed him to see what it was like. At this point we were very grateful for his company as he was able to guide us across the road. There appeared to be no real skill involved in this, just a leap of faith and to walk blindly into the oncoming traffic, while raising your hand!
The first hotel he showed us was not really what we wanted as the room was very small, so he showed us to another of his hotels a few doors down the road. Adam went to look at this room and quickly returned with a positive note. We quickly checked in and took our bags up to our room, it had a balcony, so we both stepped outside to view our surroundings. We were feeling pretty nervous about this hotel as it was down a very dark and claustrophobic alley and we were feeling quite concerned about our safety down there. It didn't help that we had read in our guide book that Saigon was the most crime ridden city in Vietnam. But as the room was very nice, we thought it would do for one night for us at the very least. As we stood on the balcony we noticed a man calling to us from the next building. He told us that he lived there and proceeded to warn us that we must lock our door and never leave it open as people will jump across the balconies and get into our room. Nervously we asked him if the alley was a safe place and he replied saying that he'd seen a few bag snatches but only heard a couple of gun shots! We thanked him for his advice, retreated to our room, picked up our back packs and got the hell out of there! The man that showed us to the previous two hotels re-appeard and this time offered to show us another hotel on the main road where we would feel safer. It was Clares turn to look at the room, but this one was very dark and dingy. When she asked to see a room with a window, the man swished back the curtains to show her that there was indeed a window there. Wow! What a view! The next building was less than a foot away and all you could see was brick! After politely declining the room and after the owner was quite rude to us, we set out in the sweltering humidity to find the hotel that we had originally booked.
Eventually we got there, both a sweaty mess, but both glad that neither of his had been run over. We were welcomed with a lovely ice cold drink, which all seemed very positive until they told us that they had emailed us the previous evening informing us that they were now full! The hotel were kind enough to show us to a hotel that they recommend, but unfortunately this one again was down a dark alley and quite a depressing room. We thanked them for their help, but declined their offer.
After evaluating our situation, we decided the best course of action was for Clare to stay with the bags and for Adam to head off with the lonely planet in hand, to find us a decent hotel. In this heat and humidity it is very hard work walking around aimlessly with your back packs on, so off Adam went, a man with a mission! After a long half an hour and just as it was starting to get dark, Adam returned looking very relieved, saying that he had found us a room. We had to move quick though, as they would only hold it for half an hour.
It was a very hot fifteen minute walk, but we arrived at the hotel just in time! We obviously looked very hot and sweaty because the reception staff told us to take a shower before we checked in! This made us laugh, we've never been so bluntly told that we needed a shower! We couldn't help but agree with them, so up we went to our room at the 'An An 2 Hotel', it was more upmarket than what we were used to, it even had a lift!
We were still feeling pretty tired from all our sight seeing in Cambodia, and as Saigon is a pretty crazy place, we used the next day to rest, get our bearings in the city and work out where we might like to visit in the country. It was becoming quite clear that travelling around vietnam was quite difficult, it is a very long country and the only way to travel is by several overnight buses. Something we were keen to avoid.
The following day we ventured out on a day trip to visit the Cu Chi Tunnels. These were an underground system of tunnels with numerous levels that were used by the Vietcong during the Vietnam war. There are over 200km of tunnels stretching across the surrounding farmland and were used as living quarters, meeting rooms, weapon making, hospitals and defending the villages against the American army. People used to live in these tunnels for months at a time! It was truly an amazing sight to see. The tunnels have been made slightly larger in size to allow western tourists to enter them. Clare did not really want to venture in any of the tunnels, but Adam gave them a good try. Even though they had increased the size of them, it still meant that Adam had to crawl through these tiny tunnels on his hands and knees. After a good effort, he decided that being down the deep, dark and confined Cu Chi tunnels was not for him and made a swift exit.
After the tunnels, we were shown all the original traps that the Vietcong used in the jungle. They were all pretty barbaric, but very cleverly designed and the most ironic thing was that they were made from the shrapnel of the bombs dropped by the Americans!
Finally we followed our tour guide who explained we were going to take a break, we could use this time to use the bathroom, have a coffee, buy an ice cream or shoot some bullets! This is where Adams eyes lit up. You had to go to a cabinet where you choose your gun and then over to a till where you buy your bullets! Adam chose an M16 machine gun, Rambo eat your heart out! He was aiming for the targets, but in all truth he didn't really care if he hit them, he was firing an M16 in Vietnam and that's what mattered!
After all the men had proved themselves, we were taken to the kitchen area of the tunnels. These would have been underground, but for tourism they had recreated it at ground level. We were given a taste of what the Vietcong soldiers would have survived on, Vietnamese tea and boiled tapioca. Neither of them were bursting with flavour or taste, but the tea was very refreshing.
On our way back to town, we were taken to a factory where crafts were made by disabled war victims and the profits go to those affected by the war. It did seem like a typical tourist trap as we didn't see many disabled people and we couldn't help see it in a cynical light.
The following day we took a taxi to see the Reunification Palace in Saigon. This was quite an interesting place to visit as it was the old central government that ruled Vietnam prior to the war. It is unique in the fact that it is preserved in almost the same state it was in when the Vietcong liberated Saigon from the Americans in 1979. It felt like you were almost in a bad guys lair from an old James Bond film, they even had an old US helicopter still on the helipad and tanks in the front grounds!
Our opinion on Vietnam at this early point was far from a positive one. Eating out was not easy at all, the food was very bland and lacking in flavour and the people were quite unfriendly as a rule. Saigon was also far too hectic to stay for any length of time. We were feeling quite disappointed as we had high hopes for this country. So, we booked a bus for the following day to take us to a beachside town called Mui Ne where hopefully we can relax for a few days and work our out where we are going next.
Thursday, 19 March 2009
8th March 2009
After a long and not very pleasant bus ride we arrived once again in the crazy city of Phnom Penh. This stay was not intended to be a long one, so we headed back once more to the HRH Hotel. The staff here were very welcoming and recognized us from our previous stay. Unfortunately the room they gave us this time was nowhere near as nice as the previous one, so we stayed there for one night and moved to another hotel call Super Star, just down the road.
Having read our guidebooks we decided to book a bus for the next day to a town called Kratie where we could visit freshwater dolphins. We were getting different reports on how long this journey would take, some as long as 8 hours, but we prepared for a bus to collect us at 7am!
So the alarms went off at 6am the following day and we both began to get ready to leave. It was obvious that neither of us were in the mood for another long bus journey, so Adams skills came into play and again used a poorly girlfriend as our excuse not to get on the bus! The hotel staff were very kind and we even got our money back!
Having decided to start to make a move towards Vietnam, we needed to arrange to get our visas, as you need one before you arrive in the country. The hotel where we were staying provided a visa service, obviously for a good fee, but it did mean we didn't have to queue up at the embassy all day. The only drawback was having to hand over your passport, which did feel a little nervous!
When we received our passports back with our new Vietnam visas, we noticed that the 30 days that it is valid for begins when it is issued and not on the date of entry.
This meant that there was no rest for us, as we did not want to lose too many days from our visa, so we booked a bus to take us from Phnom Penh, through the border, into Vietnam and all the way to Saigon.
An early night was in store for us, to get a good sleep ready for our early bus to Vietnam.
Having read our guidebooks we decided to book a bus for the next day to a town called Kratie where we could visit freshwater dolphins. We were getting different reports on how long this journey would take, some as long as 8 hours, but we prepared for a bus to collect us at 7am!
So the alarms went off at 6am the following day and we both began to get ready to leave. It was obvious that neither of us were in the mood for another long bus journey, so Adams skills came into play and again used a poorly girlfriend as our excuse not to get on the bus! The hotel staff were very kind and we even got our money back!
Having decided to start to make a move towards Vietnam, we needed to arrange to get our visas, as you need one before you arrive in the country. The hotel where we were staying provided a visa service, obviously for a good fee, but it did mean we didn't have to queue up at the embassy all day. The only drawback was having to hand over your passport, which did feel a little nervous!
When we received our passports back with our new Vietnam visas, we noticed that the 30 days that it is valid for begins when it is issued and not on the date of entry.
This meant that there was no rest for us, as we did not want to lose too many days from our visa, so we booked a bus to take us from Phnom Penh, through the border, into Vietnam and all the way to Saigon.
An early night was in store for us, to get a good sleep ready for our early bus to Vietnam.
2nd March 2009
The minivan picked us up from our hotel at 7.30am, just in time for a quick breakfast. It wasn't quite the VIP van we had imagined, just a converted Ford Transit with seats added in, but at least it was 2 hours shorter than the regular bus.
The four and a half hour journey passed quickly, but we were unlucky enough to get the back seats which happened to be right over the rear wheels. As the roads in Cambodia can be a little bit rough and unfinished, it felt like a real rollercoaster ride. They should have given us cushions for our heads for the amount of times we were launched out of our seats! We arrived in one piece thankfully, albeit a little dazed at our destination of Siem Reap.
As soon as we ventured out of the minivan we were approached by a tuk tuk driver offering us a free ride to our hotel if we used him for our upcoming three day temple tours. After discussing prices, we agreed and he explained that The Mehkong Angkor Palace Hotel, where we had booked for our stay, was a little noisy due to building work. He showed us a different hotel which had a swimming pool too, but we weren't really too enamoured with it, so we returned to our original choice and checked in. We arranged with our driver to pick us up the following day to begin our tour of the ancient temples and Angkor Wat.
We had a lovely big room at this hotel and there wasn't too much building work going on, just a little around the swimming pool area. After a quick lunch, we used the afternoon to explore the local town and also enjoyed a nice cooling swim in the pool. Siem Reap was looking like a nice and enjoyable town, but boy was it dry and dusty! There was a permanent dust cloud over the main road from all the traffic moving past!
The next morning we woke up in a far from enthusiastic mood for seeing temples, we really needed a day of rest before embarking on a busy three day tour. So after breakfast, Adam went to meet our driver and told him a little white lie, that Clare was feeling poorly today and asked him if we could start the tour tomorrow instead. It was all systems go, we had a full day of rest ahead to prepare ourselves for our temple tour. We spent the day relaxing by the pool and re-energizing for the onslaught of the next three days to follow. It was so hot in Siem Reap, so hot in fact that when Adam asked reception for towels for the pool, the receptionist asked if he had been exercising, as he was sweating so much!
The next day quickly came and we were feeling very excited about seeing these legendary temples. At 10am we were picked up by our tuk tuk driver and we worked out what we wanted to see over the next three days.
Our first stop was the ticketing area, we queued up for our 3 day passes and had our photographs taken, as they put this onto your pass, all very official. Then we headed off to the entrance of the park and into the ancient city of Angkor Thom through the very ornate south gate and already it was looking impressive and magical.
Our first stop was as The Bayon. This is a huge old temple which has vast stone heads carved into the towers and top levels. What was very special is that you could simply wander around and inside this fascinating place through the crumbling passageways and tunnels.
After exploring this amazing place we headed off to The Baphoun which we weren't very impressed with. The walkway up to the entrance was amazing but the actual temple was a little too over restored for our liking.
All the temples and palaces here are still hidden away in the middle of the jungle, so you can only imagine how it was looking around these great buildings as it got nearer to midday.
We walked to our next temple, Phimeanakas, which is a pyramidal building built on a square base. You can even climb up some very old and crumbling steep steps right to the very top of the temple, which gave us a great view over the area.
Next up was the long walk to the Elephant and Leper King Terraces, which had some amazing stone reliefs in a maze of ancient corridors. This gave us some well needed shade as we were getting so hot it was unbelievable. As quickly as we were drinking water, it was just pouring straight out of us! Luckily for us our driver spotted us, came and picked us up and took us to a restaurant for lunch.
Our driver joined us for lunch and we had a very good chat with him. He told us about his family and more harrowingly he told us of his very own sad memories of the Khmer Rouge and how his family had to hide down a trap door to avoid the soldiers. He also told us stories of when he was only eight years old, when he had to crawl across the fields on his chest to avoid the gun fire. At that very moment there was an almighty bang in the restaurant and our driver jumped into the air! It wasn't what we all feared, but a fan blade had fallen off into it's guard and sent splinters flying around the restaurant and fused all the electrics! We were all very glad it wasn't anything more sinister.
After cooling down a little at lunch, we headed off to see Angkor Wat, stopping at the south gate of Angkor Thom to marvel at the impressive gate and bridge. As we arrived at Angkor Wat we were astounded at the sheer scale of the place, it is the largest religious building in the world and 1.5km from end to end. We walked over the moat and onto an ancient causeway, passing up to the main entrance of the temple, it was an impressive sight to see ahead of us. We wandered around the temple and grounds for a good couple of hours, visiting the different levels and walkways. After much exploring we stopped for a well earned drink of water, our hats had come in very handy here and the blazing sunshine. It was 4pm and we were exhausted, it was definitely time to head back to the hotel for a much needed cool down in the pool.
As we arrived back at the hotel it became clear that the building work had got much worse, there were bits of rubble at the bottom of the pool and at one point we had to dodge some flying masonry when we were in the pool! Our minds were made up pretty instantly, we would moving hotels the next day. We had an early night, not only were we tired, but we had an early start the following day to see the sunrise.
We were awake at 5am and we had to leave our packed back packs at reception, so we could check out later in the day. At half past five we were on our way to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. We made our way to the lotus pond and got ourselves a front row seat the sun come up over the temple. This was a beautiful and serene sight to see and us both wonder how this city would have looked all those years ago.
After a quick breakfast we pressed on and visited another ancient temple in The Eastern Baray. This was another one that you could climb up to the top and it had some spectacular views over the countryside.
We then headed off on a long 30km drive to Bantaey Srey, The Citadel of Women. This was a small temple that had many complex carvings in the sand stone walls, but it was a little spoilt by the sheer number of tourists here. It was however a lovely drive through much farmland and traditional Cambodian villages, which made it worth the while.
On the way back we stopped off at Bantaey Samre which was absolutely stunning. It was like it was straight out of a Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones movie. We wandered around the crumbling temple practically on our own, exploring the tunnels, walkways and hidden rooms, it was just like stepping back through time.
Our last stop for the day was Ta Prohm and we had been especially looking forward to seeing this one. We were dropped off a little way from the temple and had a lengthy walk through the jungle until this ancient ruined building finally came into view. It was simply a magical sight as huge trees were growing through the huge green stained walls while gigantic roots wrapped themselves around the bulging brick work. We explored every inch of this stunning temple, walking through the ruins, amazed at how these massive trees had become part of this eerie building. After a thorough exploration it was back on the tuk tuk and a well deserved lunch.
A short rest later and we were back off to the town to try and find ourselves another hotel. We picked our back packs up and our driver took us to The Encore Angkor Hotel, we had a quick look but it seemed a little expensive, so our driver took us to the previous hotel we decided against on our first day, but they were full now! So back we went to the Encore Angkor Hotel, after all it had a swimming pool and we really needed to cool down. We said goodbye to our driver and checked in quickly, we were given a very nice room here and decided to check out our view from the balcony. We stood and looked down at the pool, noticing something very strange out of the corner of our eyes. It was a pool full of alligators, there was only an alligator farm next door! As we'd had a full ten hour day exploring the temples it was no surprise that we didn't do much else that day.
The next day quickly came and after an excellent breakfast at our new hotel, we met our tuk tuk driver at 9.30am. As we had seen most of the temples we wanted to see over the first two days, we didn't feel up to another gruelling day of them again, so we decided to visit the local silk farm instead.
We had a guided tour around the farm and it was fascinating. We were shown every process, the silk worms hatching, feeding, removing the chrysalis, making the thread, dyeing the fabric and weaving the finished material. Obviously the tour ended in a gift shop and we couldn't resist buying ourselves a little something each!
When we got back to our hotel we said a sad farewell to our driver, who we'd got to know very well, he even invited us to a family wedding! We exchanged email addresses and gave him a little gift of a toy monkey, as his wife was expecting a baby.
We decided to stay on in Siem Reap for a couple more days, as we were really enjoying this laid back town and some well earned R&R. So after a very pleasant six days we booked the normal bus this time back to Phnom Penh.
The four and a half hour journey passed quickly, but we were unlucky enough to get the back seats which happened to be right over the rear wheels. As the roads in Cambodia can be a little bit rough and unfinished, it felt like a real rollercoaster ride. They should have given us cushions for our heads for the amount of times we were launched out of our seats! We arrived in one piece thankfully, albeit a little dazed at our destination of Siem Reap.
As soon as we ventured out of the minivan we were approached by a tuk tuk driver offering us a free ride to our hotel if we used him for our upcoming three day temple tours. After discussing prices, we agreed and he explained that The Mehkong Angkor Palace Hotel, where we had booked for our stay, was a little noisy due to building work. He showed us a different hotel which had a swimming pool too, but we weren't really too enamoured with it, so we returned to our original choice and checked in. We arranged with our driver to pick us up the following day to begin our tour of the ancient temples and Angkor Wat.
We had a lovely big room at this hotel and there wasn't too much building work going on, just a little around the swimming pool area. After a quick lunch, we used the afternoon to explore the local town and also enjoyed a nice cooling swim in the pool. Siem Reap was looking like a nice and enjoyable town, but boy was it dry and dusty! There was a permanent dust cloud over the main road from all the traffic moving past!
The next morning we woke up in a far from enthusiastic mood for seeing temples, we really needed a day of rest before embarking on a busy three day tour. So after breakfast, Adam went to meet our driver and told him a little white lie, that Clare was feeling poorly today and asked him if we could start the tour tomorrow instead. It was all systems go, we had a full day of rest ahead to prepare ourselves for our temple tour. We spent the day relaxing by the pool and re-energizing for the onslaught of the next three days to follow. It was so hot in Siem Reap, so hot in fact that when Adam asked reception for towels for the pool, the receptionist asked if he had been exercising, as he was sweating so much!
The next day quickly came and we were feeling very excited about seeing these legendary temples. At 10am we were picked up by our tuk tuk driver and we worked out what we wanted to see over the next three days.
Our first stop was the ticketing area, we queued up for our 3 day passes and had our photographs taken, as they put this onto your pass, all very official. Then we headed off to the entrance of the park and into the ancient city of Angkor Thom through the very ornate south gate and already it was looking impressive and magical.
Our first stop was as The Bayon. This is a huge old temple which has vast stone heads carved into the towers and top levels. What was very special is that you could simply wander around and inside this fascinating place through the crumbling passageways and tunnels.
After exploring this amazing place we headed off to The Baphoun which we weren't very impressed with. The walkway up to the entrance was amazing but the actual temple was a little too over restored for our liking.
All the temples and palaces here are still hidden away in the middle of the jungle, so you can only imagine how it was looking around these great buildings as it got nearer to midday.
We walked to our next temple, Phimeanakas, which is a pyramidal building built on a square base. You can even climb up some very old and crumbling steep steps right to the very top of the temple, which gave us a great view over the area.
Next up was the long walk to the Elephant and Leper King Terraces, which had some amazing stone reliefs in a maze of ancient corridors. This gave us some well needed shade as we were getting so hot it was unbelievable. As quickly as we were drinking water, it was just pouring straight out of us! Luckily for us our driver spotted us, came and picked us up and took us to a restaurant for lunch.
Our driver joined us for lunch and we had a very good chat with him. He told us about his family and more harrowingly he told us of his very own sad memories of the Khmer Rouge and how his family had to hide down a trap door to avoid the soldiers. He also told us stories of when he was only eight years old, when he had to crawl across the fields on his chest to avoid the gun fire. At that very moment there was an almighty bang in the restaurant and our driver jumped into the air! It wasn't what we all feared, but a fan blade had fallen off into it's guard and sent splinters flying around the restaurant and fused all the electrics! We were all very glad it wasn't anything more sinister.
After cooling down a little at lunch, we headed off to see Angkor Wat, stopping at the south gate of Angkor Thom to marvel at the impressive gate and bridge. As we arrived at Angkor Wat we were astounded at the sheer scale of the place, it is the largest religious building in the world and 1.5km from end to end. We walked over the moat and onto an ancient causeway, passing up to the main entrance of the temple, it was an impressive sight to see ahead of us. We wandered around the temple and grounds for a good couple of hours, visiting the different levels and walkways. After much exploring we stopped for a well earned drink of water, our hats had come in very handy here and the blazing sunshine. It was 4pm and we were exhausted, it was definitely time to head back to the hotel for a much needed cool down in the pool.
As we arrived back at the hotel it became clear that the building work had got much worse, there were bits of rubble at the bottom of the pool and at one point we had to dodge some flying masonry when we were in the pool! Our minds were made up pretty instantly, we would moving hotels the next day. We had an early night, not only were we tired, but we had an early start the following day to see the sunrise.
We were awake at 5am and we had to leave our packed back packs at reception, so we could check out later in the day. At half past five we were on our way to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise. We made our way to the lotus pond and got ourselves a front row seat the sun come up over the temple. This was a beautiful and serene sight to see and us both wonder how this city would have looked all those years ago.
After a quick breakfast we pressed on and visited another ancient temple in The Eastern Baray. This was another one that you could climb up to the top and it had some spectacular views over the countryside.
We then headed off on a long 30km drive to Bantaey Srey, The Citadel of Women. This was a small temple that had many complex carvings in the sand stone walls, but it was a little spoilt by the sheer number of tourists here. It was however a lovely drive through much farmland and traditional Cambodian villages, which made it worth the while.
On the way back we stopped off at Bantaey Samre which was absolutely stunning. It was like it was straight out of a Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones movie. We wandered around the crumbling temple practically on our own, exploring the tunnels, walkways and hidden rooms, it was just like stepping back through time.
Our last stop for the day was Ta Prohm and we had been especially looking forward to seeing this one. We were dropped off a little way from the temple and had a lengthy walk through the jungle until this ancient ruined building finally came into view. It was simply a magical sight as huge trees were growing through the huge green stained walls while gigantic roots wrapped themselves around the bulging brick work. We explored every inch of this stunning temple, walking through the ruins, amazed at how these massive trees had become part of this eerie building. After a thorough exploration it was back on the tuk tuk and a well deserved lunch.
A short rest later and we were back off to the town to try and find ourselves another hotel. We picked our back packs up and our driver took us to The Encore Angkor Hotel, we had a quick look but it seemed a little expensive, so our driver took us to the previous hotel we decided against on our first day, but they were full now! So back we went to the Encore Angkor Hotel, after all it had a swimming pool and we really needed to cool down. We said goodbye to our driver and checked in quickly, we were given a very nice room here and decided to check out our view from the balcony. We stood and looked down at the pool, noticing something very strange out of the corner of our eyes. It was a pool full of alligators, there was only an alligator farm next door! As we'd had a full ten hour day exploring the temples it was no surprise that we didn't do much else that day.
The next day quickly came and after an excellent breakfast at our new hotel, we met our tuk tuk driver at 9.30am. As we had seen most of the temples we wanted to see over the first two days, we didn't feel up to another gruelling day of them again, so we decided to visit the local silk farm instead.
We had a guided tour around the farm and it was fascinating. We were shown every process, the silk worms hatching, feeding, removing the chrysalis, making the thread, dyeing the fabric and weaving the finished material. Obviously the tour ended in a gift shop and we couldn't resist buying ourselves a little something each!
When we got back to our hotel we said a sad farewell to our driver, who we'd got to know very well, he even invited us to a family wedding! We exchanged email addresses and gave him a little gift of a toy monkey, as his wife was expecting a baby.
We decided to stay on in Siem Reap for a couple more days, as we were really enjoying this laid back town and some well earned R&R. So after a very pleasant six days we booked the normal bus this time back to Phnom Penh.
28th February 2009
After an easy three hour minivan journey, we arrived in the centre of Phnom Penh. We had made a reservation at a hotel called Her Royal Highness Hotel and fortunately for us our driver dropped us off right outside. We had a nice and spacious room here, the only odd thing was that the bathroom had no ceiling, so you could hear everything from the bedroom! It was in a very good position too, near all the tourist attractions and close by to some bars and restaurants on the river front.
We only wanted to spend a couple of nights in Phnom Penh, so as our time here was limited, we quickly had some lunch and set about walking to the Royal Palace. On the way there we noticed that it was quite a dirty city, but at least it wasn't quite as hectic as most other capitals like Bangkok.
After a short but very hot walk, we arrived at the palace. As we were waiting to get in, a young girl approached us and tried to sell us some water. Unfortunately for her, we didn't need any then, but if we did later, we told her, we would buy some. With our ticket to the palace we received a map and a guide book, so we quickly set about looking around. It was interesting at first, looking around the various buildings and temples and seeing where the king of Cambodia now lives, but as it got hotter, in all honesty it did get a little boring. After all it is quite a recently built palace and not that different to others that you find in Asia. We spent a good couple of hours here looking around and finally decided to head back to our hotel. As we left the palace, the water seller bounced back up to us and once again tried to sell us some water. We didn't need any more as we'd had to buy some inside the palace or face dehydrating, so we declined her desperate pleas. We've never seen anything so funny, as soon as we'd said "no", she began sulking and then threw herself onto the pavement in a heap! It was just like watching our niece or nephew having a tantrum, very funny!
We headed back to our hotel for a rest from the heat and prepared ourselves for an evening out. We were pretty nervous about being in Phnom Penh as we had read some pretty stern warnings about gun crime and muggings, so we headed out with only a small amount of money on us. We had a very nice dinner out at The Happy Herb Pizza (very Cambodian, we know) and the city wasn't quite as bad as how our guide book makes out, although there are no street lights at night which does make you feel a little uneasy.
For the next day we had arranged a tuk tuk to take us around the city to visit the remaining must see places and he was waiting outside our hotel right on time at 10am.
Our first stop was the famous S-21 prison. This was an old school that had been converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge for the incarceration and torture of over 17,000 innocent people. As soon as we made our way inside, a very sombre mood hit us, this was going to be a very emotional visit. They have preserved the prison, just as it was the day Phnom Penh was liberated from the Khmer Rouge in 1979 and it was a very eerie place. We walked through all the old detention cells, some which still had instruments of torture left in them and through a smaller solitary confinement block. These cells were only as wide as a coffin, they were tiny. Some of the rooms had photographs of torture victims displayed in them, but the true brutality of the killings here were made so real with the gallery section, which showed all the innocent victims. There was no discrimination here, from women and children to old men and babies, a whole generation was wiped out here. This was a very interesting visit, where we learnt a great deal about how the Cambodians have suffered so recently, but it was also a truly saddening and emotional visit.
After the horror of S-21, we made our way back to our waiting tuk tuk, through the many war victims begging for money and set off for our next cheery destination, The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek.
It was a long journey through many rural areas, slums and pretty villages and we eventually pulled up at our next stop. This is the site where the Khmer Rouge buried all the torture victims from the S-21 prison in mass graves, sometimes when they weren't even dead. They have built a large memorial here in the middle of the fields, it is a large stupa which contains the skulls of over 8000 people that they have so far unearthed. The burial pits are all still there to see, we had heard many accounts of bones still sticking out from the ground, but we scoured them all and didn't see any. We were a little disappointed in a strange way! The fields are over quite a large area surrounded by farmland, it is now very lush and green and although it was very sad, it did feel like just a stroll around a park, had it not been for the constant begging of children around the fences.
The last port of call on our day out was The Russian Market, which is named after the Russian traders that mainly used it many years ago. It is a huge covered market which sells pretty much everything from fruit, car parts, spices, silks and tourist souvenirs. We had a well deserved lunch before heading into the market. Once inside it was a massive labyrinth of small corridors all heading in different directions and it was extremely hot and humid in there. We enjoyed having a look around for a while, but soon the heat just got too hard to handle, so we left, found our driver and headed back to the comfort of the air con in our hotel.
We had a great day out and it really made us appreciate how much this country has suffered so recently and just how far they have come since these terrible times. It really is a credit to how friendly and welcoming we have found the Cambodian people.
We spent the rest of the day resting and had a very tasty dinner at a friendly restaurant called The Dolphin which was very near our hotel. Then it was an early night again for us in preparation for another early minivan journey, this time to Siem Reap.
We only wanted to spend a couple of nights in Phnom Penh, so as our time here was limited, we quickly had some lunch and set about walking to the Royal Palace. On the way there we noticed that it was quite a dirty city, but at least it wasn't quite as hectic as most other capitals like Bangkok.
After a short but very hot walk, we arrived at the palace. As we were waiting to get in, a young girl approached us and tried to sell us some water. Unfortunately for her, we didn't need any then, but if we did later, we told her, we would buy some. With our ticket to the palace we received a map and a guide book, so we quickly set about looking around. It was interesting at first, looking around the various buildings and temples and seeing where the king of Cambodia now lives, but as it got hotter, in all honesty it did get a little boring. After all it is quite a recently built palace and not that different to others that you find in Asia. We spent a good couple of hours here looking around and finally decided to head back to our hotel. As we left the palace, the water seller bounced back up to us and once again tried to sell us some water. We didn't need any more as we'd had to buy some inside the palace or face dehydrating, so we declined her desperate pleas. We've never seen anything so funny, as soon as we'd said "no", she began sulking and then threw herself onto the pavement in a heap! It was just like watching our niece or nephew having a tantrum, very funny!
We headed back to our hotel for a rest from the heat and prepared ourselves for an evening out. We were pretty nervous about being in Phnom Penh as we had read some pretty stern warnings about gun crime and muggings, so we headed out with only a small amount of money on us. We had a very nice dinner out at The Happy Herb Pizza (very Cambodian, we know) and the city wasn't quite as bad as how our guide book makes out, although there are no street lights at night which does make you feel a little uneasy.
For the next day we had arranged a tuk tuk to take us around the city to visit the remaining must see places and he was waiting outside our hotel right on time at 10am.
Our first stop was the famous S-21 prison. This was an old school that had been converted into a prison by the Khmer Rouge for the incarceration and torture of over 17,000 innocent people. As soon as we made our way inside, a very sombre mood hit us, this was going to be a very emotional visit. They have preserved the prison, just as it was the day Phnom Penh was liberated from the Khmer Rouge in 1979 and it was a very eerie place. We walked through all the old detention cells, some which still had instruments of torture left in them and through a smaller solitary confinement block. These cells were only as wide as a coffin, they were tiny. Some of the rooms had photographs of torture victims displayed in them, but the true brutality of the killings here were made so real with the gallery section, which showed all the innocent victims. There was no discrimination here, from women and children to old men and babies, a whole generation was wiped out here. This was a very interesting visit, where we learnt a great deal about how the Cambodians have suffered so recently, but it was also a truly saddening and emotional visit.
After the horror of S-21, we made our way back to our waiting tuk tuk, through the many war victims begging for money and set off for our next cheery destination, The Killing Fields of Choeung Ek.
It was a long journey through many rural areas, slums and pretty villages and we eventually pulled up at our next stop. This is the site where the Khmer Rouge buried all the torture victims from the S-21 prison in mass graves, sometimes when they weren't even dead. They have built a large memorial here in the middle of the fields, it is a large stupa which contains the skulls of over 8000 people that they have so far unearthed. The burial pits are all still there to see, we had heard many accounts of bones still sticking out from the ground, but we scoured them all and didn't see any. We were a little disappointed in a strange way! The fields are over quite a large area surrounded by farmland, it is now very lush and green and although it was very sad, it did feel like just a stroll around a park, had it not been for the constant begging of children around the fences.
The last port of call on our day out was The Russian Market, which is named after the Russian traders that mainly used it many years ago. It is a huge covered market which sells pretty much everything from fruit, car parts, spices, silks and tourist souvenirs. We had a well deserved lunch before heading into the market. Once inside it was a massive labyrinth of small corridors all heading in different directions and it was extremely hot and humid in there. We enjoyed having a look around for a while, but soon the heat just got too hard to handle, so we left, found our driver and headed back to the comfort of the air con in our hotel.
We had a great day out and it really made us appreciate how much this country has suffered so recently and just how far they have come since these terrible times. It really is a credit to how friendly and welcoming we have found the Cambodian people.
We spent the rest of the day resting and had a very tasty dinner at a friendly restaurant called The Dolphin which was very near our hotel. Then it was an early night again for us in preparation for another early minivan journey, this time to Siem Reap.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
26th February 2009
As Kep was only a half hour tuk tuk ride away, we were able to have a relaxed departure from Kampot. So we had our breakfast in a very leisurely fashion and then hired ourselves a tuk tuk to take us there.
We had done some research on where we wanted to stay in Kep, but after talking to the owner of Blissful Guest House, we changed our minds after he recommended a different guest house called 'Kukuluku'. After his description of really nice rooms and a private beach, we thought we were on to a winner with this one! After we arrived and checked in, we quicky realized that the rooms did not fit the description he had given us, they were very depressing and sparse and the private beach was a gross exagerration too! It looked more like a tiny muddy riverbank!
Adam noticed that opposite the guest house was a sign pointing to a place called 'Malibu Resort', so we trundled off up the dusty track in the heat of the midday sun to see if was any better than ours. It was beautiful and we immediately knew that this was out of our budget. After asking for the prices, this was confirmed, but we were encouraged to look at their camping option. Not being the outdoors types, we chuckled and said that we would take a look. To our amazement it was actually very nice, no tents to be seen at all, they were more like wooden gazebos with a raised floor and a double bed inside. As nice as they looked, it really wasn't our cup of tea.
After politely turning the camping option down, they called a tuk tuk for us, as we knew we didn't want to stay at Kukuluku. It was no time at all and the tuk tuk arrived for us. We talked to the driver and explained where we wanted to go and he quickly phoned all of our choices to see if they had any free rooms. This was starting to get a little tricky as they were all fully booked. We had one more option left, so we returned to Kukuluku to pick up our back packs. As we loaded them on to our waiting tuk tuk, our driver noticed that he had a flat tyre! Kep is a very quiet place and there are hardly any tuk tuk's around, so the driver kindly phoned his friend who owned a car to come and help us! Very quickly we were having a bags taken in to a very nice looking room at The Star Inn Hotel on the beach front. The tuk tuk driver and his friend did not ask us for any money, but we gave them a couple of dollars each for being so helpful to us.
Later that evening our tuk tuk driver came by to our hotel to thank us for the money, as it enabled him to buy a brand new tyre, rather than just having it repaired! He was very happy, so we chatted to him for a while and he even invited us to a party with him that evening! We thanked him very much, but declined his generous invitation. That evening we both ate in the hotel restaurant and we both had some very fresh crab. It was very messy, hard work but very tasty.
Later that evening it rained so hard that it woke us up, this was a proper monsoon and storm. We stood on our balcony watching the lightning move across the bay and lighting up the clouds and sea for our enjoyment. Suddenly we realized we had made the right decision not to go with the camping, we would have been a little wet by now!
The following morning we were looking forward to our breakfast that was included in the room price. Normally that would be a plus point but unfortunately here it consisted of coffee that could remove the enamel from your teeth and eggs that were deep fried in oil, nice and greasy! We asked for some butter to try and moisten the bread, they pointed at the triangle of laughing cow cheese on our plate and told us that was it! That's a new combination, cheese and jam!
We spent the day relaxing around the promenade and enjoyed a very nice sunset on the beach front with a nice can of beer in our hands, looking our to sea at the small islands in the bay.
Kep is a lovely and relaxing beach side town and we do hope to return. But next time we will book in advance for the resort we originally wanted.
We are off in the morining again and this time have arranged a minivan to pick us up from our hotel at 9am, It is taking us to the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.
We had done some research on where we wanted to stay in Kep, but after talking to the owner of Blissful Guest House, we changed our minds after he recommended a different guest house called 'Kukuluku'. After his description of really nice rooms and a private beach, we thought we were on to a winner with this one! After we arrived and checked in, we quicky realized that the rooms did not fit the description he had given us, they were very depressing and sparse and the private beach was a gross exagerration too! It looked more like a tiny muddy riverbank!
Adam noticed that opposite the guest house was a sign pointing to a place called 'Malibu Resort', so we trundled off up the dusty track in the heat of the midday sun to see if was any better than ours. It was beautiful and we immediately knew that this was out of our budget. After asking for the prices, this was confirmed, but we were encouraged to look at their camping option. Not being the outdoors types, we chuckled and said that we would take a look. To our amazement it was actually very nice, no tents to be seen at all, they were more like wooden gazebos with a raised floor and a double bed inside. As nice as they looked, it really wasn't our cup of tea.
After politely turning the camping option down, they called a tuk tuk for us, as we knew we didn't want to stay at Kukuluku. It was no time at all and the tuk tuk arrived for us. We talked to the driver and explained where we wanted to go and he quickly phoned all of our choices to see if they had any free rooms. This was starting to get a little tricky as they were all fully booked. We had one more option left, so we returned to Kukuluku to pick up our back packs. As we loaded them on to our waiting tuk tuk, our driver noticed that he had a flat tyre! Kep is a very quiet place and there are hardly any tuk tuk's around, so the driver kindly phoned his friend who owned a car to come and help us! Very quickly we were having a bags taken in to a very nice looking room at The Star Inn Hotel on the beach front. The tuk tuk driver and his friend did not ask us for any money, but we gave them a couple of dollars each for being so helpful to us.
Later that evening our tuk tuk driver came by to our hotel to thank us for the money, as it enabled him to buy a brand new tyre, rather than just having it repaired! He was very happy, so we chatted to him for a while and he even invited us to a party with him that evening! We thanked him very much, but declined his generous invitation. That evening we both ate in the hotel restaurant and we both had some very fresh crab. It was very messy, hard work but very tasty.
Later that evening it rained so hard that it woke us up, this was a proper monsoon and storm. We stood on our balcony watching the lightning move across the bay and lighting up the clouds and sea for our enjoyment. Suddenly we realized we had made the right decision not to go with the camping, we would have been a little wet by now!
The following morning we were looking forward to our breakfast that was included in the room price. Normally that would be a plus point but unfortunately here it consisted of coffee that could remove the enamel from your teeth and eggs that were deep fried in oil, nice and greasy! We asked for some butter to try and moisten the bread, they pointed at the triangle of laughing cow cheese on our plate and told us that was it! That's a new combination, cheese and jam!
We spent the day relaxing around the promenade and enjoyed a very nice sunset on the beach front with a nice can of beer in our hands, looking our to sea at the small islands in the bay.
Kep is a lovely and relaxing beach side town and we do hope to return. But next time we will book in advance for the resort we originally wanted.
We are off in the morining again and this time have arranged a minivan to pick us up from our hotel at 9am, It is taking us to the capital city of Cambodia, Phnom Penh.
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