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Last entry was written from Sihanoukville in Cambodia and I didn't even get as far as writing about our time there! We got there on Wednesday 14th, got in a taxi, got to a guest house, straight to the beach! The place we stayed was $4 a night and 5 mins from the beach with a tv and everything, bargain.
We had heard that Serendipity beach was the 'backpacker' spot to hang out but when we got to that stretch of sand it seemd to be mainly concrete with broken pieces of wood and rubble strewn about. There were sandbags along the front of all the bars and the tide reached right up to them in most places, there wasn't any sand in sight! Someone explained later that the typhoons had caused the water to knock the front off a few of the bars, it's not usually so much of a wreck. We didn't realise that it had affected that area. About 5 mins down the coast it changes to Occheutheal beach so we decided that would be a better choice. The coastline is covered with bars so we picked a sun lounger, bought a bottle of water each to cover the $1 minimum spend to use their chairs and settled in for the afternoon.
We didn't realise while we were sitting out that we were slowly turning pink, it seems we missed out parts of our body when we were putting on the sun cream! The whole top of Ryan's chest was bright pink and I had a pink bikini top imprint - great! Ryan's went down pretty quickly but I wasn't so lucky, it stayed for a few days but didn't peel or anything.
The beaches in Sihanoukville are surprisingly nice - there were reports on the internet saying they were much worse than Thailand so I wasn't expecting much. The sea is pretty clear and very warm, the sand is soft and white, what more can you ask for? The only problem is the amount of hawkers selling things on the beach. Every five minutes someone would come up and ask 'you want massage? manicure? pedicure? change colour? you buy bracelet? tomorrow yeah? you decide you want change colour you come to me yeah?'. It was very annoying! I did give in one of the days and have my eyebrows threaded because I need to tweeze them anyway and I hate doing it, but the woman came back a few times saying 'you help me out, manicure?'. I know they're only trying to make a living, but if you say no once pestering you won't make you give in! I suppose it probably works on a lot of people... Ryan bought some fake Ray Bans too (because I sat on his, sorry Ryan!). The sellers seem to think we have an endless supply of money, as if handing out $1 to anyone that ask won't even make a dent in out wallets.
We went to the restaurant almost right next door to our guesthouse that night because we smelled their barbeque as we walked past, it was a very good choice. Barbeque chicken for me, barracuda for Ryan, barbeque seasoned potatoes and a big pile of salad for $3. We went back on our last night so we knew we'd have a good last night in Sihanoukville.
The next few days there were much the same. Got up, had breakfast, went to the beach, went back to the guesthouse, showered, got dinner, had a drink, went to bed. Not very exciting but it was lovely to relax by the sea for a few days after so much travel. On Friday we decided to liven it up a bit by going to a different beach. I'd read in the Lonely Planet guide that most of the beach belonged to a resort, but you could pay $1.50 to use it and it was completely free of sellers but I think the Lonely Planet people were making it up. We asked to use a lounger and they tried to charge us $4.50. Not a chance! So we got a tuk tuk to Otres beach instead. It was lovely and quiet there, not as many sellers, but more expensive. We just went back to Occheuteal the next day. So much for change.
One of the highlights of the whole trip happened at Occheuteal though! We looked up and spotted a monk, robes and all, in a speed boat sending a text message haha. I guess they don't live the simple life anymore! It got even better when the boat pulled out, with the monk driving, and it was pulling a banana boat! Classic! We both forgot our cameras that day and were kicking ourselves. When are we ever going to see another monk sending a text message in a speedboat towing a banana boat?
On Sunday morning we got an early bus to Siem Reap. We were given seats 1 & 2, which for some reason were much larger than the other ones and were green leather with a leopard print inlay. Very stylish! We had absolutely loads of leg room too, it was great. The worst thing about buses in SE Asia is the tv or music they put on during the journey. There's a channel called KTV and it's all they seem to play. It's really cheesy Cambodian pop songs with the words scrolling underneath so you can sing along (presumably the K in KTV is for karaoke). All the songs sound the same and all the videos seem to be about a man trying to get with a woman while his friends laugh at his failed attempts or, as Ryan just reminded me, drunk men being thrown out of their houses by their wives who are sick of their behaviour. Odd. A short time into our journey they switched off the Cambodian cheese and put what I thought was going to be a movie on. It opened with a view of an empty street of terraced houses...I wondered what it was going to be. Then a spotlight shone from above into the middle of the street...vague recognition flashed through my head. A man dropped from the sky into the middle of the spotlight beam..... Mr Bean!! They were playing Mr Bean on the bus! We had to sit through 4 episodes of it. Apparently it's still funny here.
There was a bus change in Phnom Penh which meant we had no more leopard print seats and no more leg room. Instead the very wide man with a scaly head in front of me kept trying to recline his seat but failed because my knees were already pressed against the back. I don't think he understood the fact that my legs aren't compressable. To make matters worse the bus company then put on the same episodes of Mr Bean we'd just seen, haha! There must be one Mr Bean tape circulating throughout Cambodia.
We got to Siem Reap and had a free tuk tuk organised by the company we booked our bus ticket with - very handy as it was late and the 'bus station' was very dark and in the middle of nowhere. We had to drive down dark empty roads for the first ten minutes after we left the 'station' and I kept thinking he was taking us the wrong direction and was going to rob us! Long bus journeys must make me paranoid.
We asked him to take us to a $4 dollar guesthouse, so we were shown a $7 room. Typical. We opted for a cheaper room in the same place but realised after we checked in that the mosquito screens had gaps around the edges and the room was filled with them, so rather than lose our business when we said we'd go somewhere else they reduced the price of the nice rooms, woohoo! We had a huge room with a TV for the next few nights.
On Monday we got up and had breakfast at our guesthouse. I had noodle soup with vegetable and Ryan had Thai noodles, which both turned out to be Super Noodles. They hadn't even tried to disguise it - they brought it to the table just after they'd added the hot water so it was still in a big noodle-block! We wanted to head to Angkor Wat that morning so we took a walk to find a tuk tuk driver that wasn't associated with the guesthouse. Neither of us wanted to give them any more money after they served us Super Noodles for breakfast! Luckily we met our new friend Sock with his tuk tuk right on the corner of our street. He probably doesn't spell his name like that but we didn't ask, so from now on he's footwear! He brought us to the bank to get some money out, about 10km to Angkor Wat, waited there for us for 3 hours, and drove us back to town for $7. We might have been able to get it cheaper but it's a long way! We then had to pay $40 for a 3 day pass to the temples which bankrupt us, but after seeing them I'd happily pay $100 to go back.
Travel guides said that it was easy and cheaper to rent bikes and cycle around Angkor Wat so we decided we'd to that, and I was sure I'd read somewhere that you could rent them at the site... I was wrong. The ticket sellers told us we could rent bikes but we'd have to get a tuk tuk back to town and cycle to the site. We ended up dropped off at Angkor Wat miles from the other temples with no transport. Oops. I'm quite glad we didn't organise a tour that day though, we managed to spend hours in Angkor Wat alone. It was absolutely amazing, definitely the best day I've had since we left. It's so much fun leaping around the ruins and scaling the steep stone steps to temples! We've taken hundreds of pictures but they just don't do it justice. I said to Ryan while we were standing in one of the inner courtyards 'it's the biggest thing I've ever seen!', it's such a shame you can't get it all in a photograph. I don't think the photos would really be as exciting to someone who wasn't there at the time, we were imagining putting on a slide show and going 'there's a corridor at Angkor Wat, another corridor, that's a big column, another corridor, doorway, corridor, Buddha, column, corridor, corridor, corridor....' haha. We're going to cull them for the photo albums online rather than put up 200 pictures of trees, stone and trees growing around stone!
We couldn't afford to pay any more that day to travel to other temples just for an hour or two before sunset, so we had lunch at a restaurant across from Angkor Wat (with a resident really cute little slightly mangey puppy). We asked a tuk tuk driver out of interest how much he'd charge just to take us to Ta Prohm that day and he initially said $10, so we said thanks but no thanks. After that he followed us while we looked for food his price until it was about $6, we kept saying 'no we've decided we'll just go home this afternoon, thanks'. We were in a restaurant at this point and he came in every few minutes to say 'Ok, I'll take you to this temple for $4' and we'd turn it down, say we're going home, then he'd come back in a few minutes and say 'how about this other temple for $4'. They're bloody persistent. No matter how many times we said 'we don't even want to see that temple' or 'we've decided we're going home thanks' he kept trying bless him. We must have been asked about a million times by now if we need a tuk tuk, or have a tuk tuk driver stop us and suggest we go somewhere and pay him to take us even if we're clearly on our way somewhere! One guy even spotted us in a restaurant, pulled up outside and waited until we'd finished our meal so he could ask us when we got outside!
Anyway, after eating near Angkor Wat we asked Sock to drop us back to Pub Street. It's a street with lots of pubs on it in case the name isn't descriptive enough. There we discovered Angkor Draft for 50cents a glass! Cambodia is definitely the best place for beer. All the alcoholics in the UK should leave White Lightning or Wetherspoons behind and move to Siem Reap. We went to the market so I could buy some sunglasses after I realised I smashed mine - I smacked my bag off a rock while climbing down some steep steps at Angkor and must have cracked them, then had a disappointing dinner in a local restaurant and got some beers for the room so we could get an early night.
Sock picked us up again the next morning at 9.30 and we set off to explore the other temples. This time he brought us to 7 temples, waited for us at each one and brought us back to town. We tried looking for him again when we needed a tuk tuk but we couldn't find him! We had to begrudgingly give business to someone else instead.
The first temple we visited on Tuesday was Bayon at Angkor Thom. The towers at Bayon with serene smiling faces on each side are one of the most famous images of Angkor. Bayon isn't in as good condition as Angkor Wat, it hasn't seen the same amount of restoration work yet. The whole front of the temple is in ruins, the rocks are just strewn over the ground where they fell from the roof. There is a lot of restoration work being carried out at all the sites though, there's scaffolding up which ruins the view, but if it wasn't there and the temples weren't being worked on, who knows how much longer there would be a view. Bayon has an outer perimeter of the usual corridors, and the centre is built on a large stone platform reached by steep narrow steps. There's a stupa right in the centre of the platform, in a maze of doors, where peope still come to worship, light incense and leave gifts for Buddha.
The next temple was Baphuon and the Terrace of the Elaphants. Baphuon was first built as a temple to the Hindu God Shiva, but later converted to a Buddhist place of worship. When it ws converted a 70 meter long reclining Buddha was built into the stone on the rear West side of the temple. It's in ruins now, but work is being done and you can make out the shape of the body and Buddha's face. I tried to take a picture but there is no way to fit it into one shot or to capture the face properly.
We stopped for a quick lunch of rice/noodles (our staple diet while trying to cut down on spends!) and moved on to visit a large temple/city complex called Preah Kahn. It was built for King Jayavarman VII and dedicated to his father. The smaller temple Ta Prohm which we visited later on was dedicated to his mother. There's a visitors centre just inside the city walls which explain some of the imagery and symbols used in the architecture - that the figures around the entire perimeter wall are Garudas and guard the city, the figures holding a giant multi-headed snake which make up ballistrades along the edge of bridges and walkways throughout the park are symbolic of a struggle between good and evil (figures are good, snake evil) etc. It was interesting to know more about the buildings.
We then got lost in the small Ta Keo temple! It's an almost square building, with walkways to the North, South, East and West. We were interrupted by a man with 'Police' on his shirt (you can buy the shirts at the market so who knows if he was for real) who said 'I'll tell you some of the history' and dragged us around the temple before casually bringing up the story of having 4 kids and a wife who can't work and asking for a donation. We conveniently didn't have any money. If we wanted a guide we would have asked for one when we went in, some of the people there are really cheeky! I suppose it's harder in low season to make a living if you depend on tourists. He got us so confused about where we were by going through little doorways and climbing over things that we couldn't remember what direction we were facing and couldn't find our way back to Sock and the tuk tuk! We were running down each corridor looking for something familiar until we found someone who understood 'main entrance?' and pointed us in the right direction!
Ta Prohm was the next temple on the list, and it's apparently the most visited after Angkor Wat. When anyone says Angkor Wat you think of giant trees growing through the ruins and Ta Prohm is where that happens. It's amazing to see - some of the trees are over 300 years old and so high you can't see the tops, with their roots completely entangled with the ruins. Some work has been done there to stabilise it because the weight of the trees and the strength of the roots has begun to crush the walls, but they've worked hard to keep the impression it's been neglected and the jungle is taking it over. It was awesome to see, but unfortunately the amount of tourist that visit the site means they've built 'photograph' platforms in front of some of the most beautiful parts. There's a famous image of the biggest tree there strangling the ruins, and it's just not the same with a big wooden platform in front of it. Some things are better left alone.
Banteay Kdei and Prasat Kravan were the last two stops of the day. Banteay Kdei is a small structure which is almost completely in ruins. It's worrying walking around inside there and seeing a wall at an angle with stones out of place and a rickety looking wooden support holding it up at one end... Prasat Kravan was a red brick platform with 5 red brick towers, each holding a shrine. Inside the centre tower there were elaborate carvings on the walls of Hindu Gods, and inscriptions covering the doorways and any part of the wall without pictures, but the others were quite plain. The last two temples as you can see by the short description weren't too impressive!
On Wednesday we were knackered affter our temple climbing so we just did nothing for the day! We went acros the river to the post office for Ryan, had a look around the shopping centre which was mainly empty units and a small arcade, had a look around the local market... just chilled out really.
On Thursday we went on a 3 hour horse trek which I was higely excited about and Ryan couldn't care less about! It was expensive but I hadn't been on a hirse in about a year and a half so when I saw ads fpor a ranch I had to go! We were picked up at 7am so we could get out on the trek before the hot part of the day or us and the horses might have collapsed. It's a lot hotter in Cambodia than anywhere else we've been. Our guide was a girl, from New Zealand who'd been working at the ranch for a year and a half after travelling for a while. It sounds like a great way to spend 2 years! Ryan had a nice quiet little pony but didn't like going too fast (haa) because he had only ever been on a pony trek about 20 years ago! Mine was a nightmare though! It was a lovely horse but was used to being at the front of the ride, not at the back where I was making him stay, so he didn't like me. He was snorting and throwing his head about until he was allowed at the front for a while. I tried to keep him back from Ryan and Lucy (the guide) a few times so I could have a bit of a canter but he seemed to think he was getting left behind and was having none of it! He'd spin in circles and throw his head about until we could go then tear up the track until he reached Ryan's horses arse. After 2 attempts at this he decided that when I pulled on the reigns, instead of stopping he'd just turn around and walk backwards. What a fool. I had fun but I don't think Ryan enjoyed it, he keeps changing his story from thinking it was alright but he wouldn't do it again to he thought it was terrible - depends what mood he's in haha. I don't think he's built for horse riding because his legs and arse were killing him! I apparently have bandier legs and a more cushioned bum.
Thursday was our last evening in Siem Reap so we treated ourselves to a nice meal and 50cents beers and had another relaxing night. We had an early bus to catch to Bangkok the next morning.
I was quite upset about leaving Cambodia, I absolutely loved it there. Loads of people come all the way to SE Asia just come to Thailand then sometimes on to Laos to go tubing and miss out on Cambodia, it's such a shame! I'd choose Cambodia over both countries any day, no matter how many people say the islands in Thailand are paradise!
We left Siem Reap for Bangkok on Friday 23rd, in total it's about a 10 hour journey (groan). We stopped at the border to get our visas and had to queue for about an hour just to get the stamp. There were absolutely tons of people packed into the room waiting for stamps and only 2 desks for foreigners. As usual we got off one bus at the border, got our visas, and were due to get on another bus on the other side. When we got through immigration we met our tour operators and they told us that they didn't know we were coming (everyone else on our original bus seemed to be going to a different part of Thailand) and told us to go to their office. We went over there, they told us to meet a guy somewhere else and he'd get us on a bus. We met the guy, he said a bus would be here in about 15 mins, he'll go to the office and make sure, and told us to wait there and he'll come back. He didn't come back... We had to walk back to the office and sit in front until they agreed to fit us on a bus! We managed to get seats at the front so we had leg room so at least it was a comfortable journey.
The bus dropped us off around the corner from Khaosan Road when we got to Bangkok, so we checked into the first hostel we came across and went for dinner. We hadn't really explored the alleyways of Khasoan the last time we were there, it's a shame - there were some nice bars down there. There was an ace 'busker' on Khaoson too. He was dancing along to music played at one of the bars and just doing stupid moves, he was just wobbling around and throwing his arms out so he looked like he was made of jelly. He looked absolutely wrecked, he probably thought he was brilliant haha.
It was only a quick stopover in Bangkok so we could get our flight to Krabi the next day. We couldn't face another 9 hour bus journey so we decided to do that leg in comfort! It was a short non eventful flight. The most interesting thing on the plane was the tattoo on the arm of the guy next to me. He had an old tattoo of a terrible skull with a snake wrapped around the bottom - really badly done - and had it covered up with another bad tattoo of a chinese style snake around his whole upper arm. Why would you get a bad tattoo covered up with another bad tattoo so badly done you can still see the original you're trying to hide? Terrible.
Anyway, we got to Krabi airport and decided we'd head to Ao Nang. We got a minibus to what Ryan thought was Ao Nang beach...it was actually Nopparatthara but he wouldn't believe me! I was a bit miffed to begin with but in fairness when we asked the bus driver did say it was Ao Nang! Ryan also wouldn't believe me the driver didn't speak English and didn't have a clue what he was asking haha. I decided to make him feel guilty about it for a while but don't blame him really, no matter what he writes in his blog! There was nothing to do at Nopparatthara but get a boat to Railay beach so that's what we did. We had to wade out to a long tail boat with our bags (I'm glad I'm not really short) and climg into the boat, then it was a short hop to the beach where we climbed out into the water again. When we landed on Railay I'm not sure about Ryan but I got very worried very fast - all we could see up and down the beach were resorts... way too expensive! We wandered around for a while until we came across a nice rock climber man who told us we wouldn't get anything on Railay for less than 1000Baht a night, but boats go over to Ao Ton Sai beach around the corner, where he was staying in a bungalow for 400Baht a night including breakfast. I'm so thankful we met him! If I knew his name I'd send a card. We shared a boat with another couple, got a bungalow and booked a ferry to Ko Phi Phi for the next morning. It was our anniversary that night so we planned to have a nice dinner to celebrate but our wallets were sucked dry by all the travel costs! We had enough to get rice or noodles and one drink on the beach! We can't complaint though, we were on a lovely beach in Southern Thailand with no work, it was a perfect celebration really!
The guesthouse owner told us that we could walk around to Railay beach to get the ferry the next morning, so we decided to do that instead of shell out for another boat. We set off at 8am for the 9am ferry and started the walk down the beach. To get around to Railay you have to walk around giant limestone cliffs, either across rocks which are above water level at low tide or through the water, which was still too deep to walk through with our backpacks. The rocks were really slippy and after about 5 mins of climbing I had the ingenious idea to let my foot slip. It only moved about an inch but with the weight of my backpack it was enough to throw me completely off balance, the force even spun me to face a different direction! My right foot slipped, so my right kneecap took my entire weight when I landed. My left shoe decided it wasn't going to slip though, so that leg got wrenched to the side. I would have normally stopped there and just stood up, but my backpack was heavy so it pushed me down to the ground, causing both legs to scrape along the rocks along with my right arm, and to finish bash my head against another rock. Owwwwwww! I was then trapped under my backpack completely helpless. I felt like a turtle with no legs. Ryan had to come and flip me over haha. I'm so glad he was there or I might have had to lie there until someone discovered me!! Thanks Ryan :) We didn't have enough money to turn back and get the boat over to Railay so we just had to keep climbing, bloody legs and everything. I was wailing like a child too - even when I'm 70 if I fall over I'll still cry like that, all snotty and sobbing! We made it to the other side for 9am, after rushing over the rocks, and the ferry didn't leave until half past. Typical!
Anyway, it's dinner time so I'll leave the rest of Thailand for another entry!
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