Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
SO!
This is going to be pretty short.
i think the last blog i did was from koh samui.
so heres whats gone on since then -
went to the ang thong national marine park - beautiful. lots of steep walking. hen they say 500m - they dont tell you it is scrambling uphill over rocks and its so steep that you need a rope to help pull you up. but really pretty though. gotbnack and went ovewr to koh phangan for the full moon party - lots of glow in the dark paint, sangsom buckets and dancing....and liv getting her money, drivers licence and our return ticket to koh samui stolen. not fun. but we knew the risks so purposely didnt take anything of real value.
then wejust hung out in koh samui for another week. love mae nam so just chilled there. plus we had a bit of a nasty hangover from the full moon party to occupy us for a couple of days!
got an overnight sleeper train to bangkok the following tuesday. actually - it was taxi, boat, bus, tuk tuk, train then another taxi. then we were in bangkok. fun. took a fair while to get there! bangkok was full of christmas present shopping and sending stuff home. i had done most if the tourist things before so liv went off to do that and im not sure what i did actually. went to chatuchak weekend market before we left whcih was fun - and full of stalls. we were there for about 3 hours and probably only saw not even a tenth of it. crazy! got our vietnam visas all sorted in bangkok too.
so the following mondya we got on a bus to siam reap in cambodia. the bus took not too long to get to the border but on the other side it took FOREVER to get to siam reap. 1. the roads are non existant. most arent paved so it takes a while anyway. 2. we got a flat tyre which had to be changed. 3. we had to stop for another hour to check that flat tyre again. finally got to siam reap and chilled. didnt get up to much in siam reap really. met some girls from calgary who stayed in our hotel - liv went out partying with them a few times but i wasnt feeling 100% at all so ended up in bed more than i wanted. still got to go to angkor wat though which was good. and lucky. because it poured with rain a fair bit while we werethere. but we saw a break in the clouds and got our butts to angkor wat pretty speedily! was beautiful - but its strange as loads of the statues have had their heads chopped ioff etc (part of the khymer rouges doing - they banned religion so got rid of their temples in cambodia). angkor thom with all its stone faces carved in was much prettier in our opinion - but again - a ruin. got templed out pretty quickly so only saw a few then back to the hotel.
went to phnom penh on the friday and hung out with some other people we met in our hotel that night. saturday we went with them to the tuol sleng genocide museum and then the killing fields. words really escape you when talking about these places - its just so horrific what the khymer rouge did to a quarter of the cambodian population in the 70s that it really makes you think 1. how lucky you are. and 2. how the world could let this go on for 4 years before finally putting an end to it.
sunday....i got sick. was not fun. we were meant to go to vietnam onthe monday but i was still very sick so postponed til tuesday. headed to vietnam with some guys from our hostel on tuesday and went out with them in saigon that night - photographic evidence of alcohol consumed in my photo albums! the next day we slept through most of it really. then that evening went to a park nearby, had a few beers and chatted to some locals. one of the locals bought out this wooden flute....my attempts to play it were not very successful - to be fair - i havent played in about 10 years!!! unfortunately however, beer does not agree with me and thursday i was not well. then friday i got very sick again. which sucked because we were meant to go to the cu chi tunnels. so put that off and went to the mekong delta on the saturday (even though i was still not 100% i REFUSED to be sat in bed for another 24 hours!) mekong delta was beautiful. the tour was not organised particularly well though and it seemed every stop was a shop which was a massive pain. but to be fair, as i was still not 100% it worked ok for me! then sunday we headed to the cu chi tunnels - absolutely dreadful tour - loads of costs they leave out and dont tell you about until you get on their tour bus. then you get there with the other hoards of people and get told to hurry up and keep going extremely quickly while your guide tells you oh too passionately about the traps the vietcong used against the americans. then you go to a cafe...which is right next to a shooting range...which again you have to pay extra for...and if you dont do it you sit at the cafe getting your ears blasted off waiting for everyone else. so not too happy really.
finally we get to yesterday - 24 hour bus trip north to hoi an. VERY happy we paid a bit more for a sleeper bus and actually got some rest on the thing though! so we are now in hoi an - a sleepy little market town that seems to be caught between about 5 different cultures - chinese, vietnamese, european. we will opnly be here for 24 hours then up to hanoi (another 16 hour trip!) then on to hong kong!
sorry for the quick overview but there is far too much to go over as im too lazy to to blogs very regularly!
- comments