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Koh Rong to Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh to Siem Reap to Koh Chang (Day 123 to Day 138)
Ko Chang, Thailand
After 19 days in paradise, Anne and I decided that it was about time to advance onwards with our journey. If truth be told, we didn't feel that it was time to leave but the fact that our visa's were expiring in less than a week meant that it was imperative for us to return to civilisation and see the remaining sites in Cambodia, which had already been compromised in return for a few extra days on the island.
On the morning that we left, we said our goodbyes to the staff and other travellers who had become part of the furniture at Monkey Island resort and headed to the pier. It goes without saying that the ferry took all but our hearts back to Sihanoukville and before we knew it, we were back to the hustle and bustle of Cambodia's very own 'Ayia Napa' or 'Malia', being hassled every 5 steps by tuk-tuk drivers and the sort. After finding digs for the evening, we headed out for lunch and spent a considerable amount of time in the internet cafe updating our blog and catching up on the world's events from the past 3 weeks. As we had decided that Sihanoukville wasn't our cup of tea, we booked a coach back to Phnom Penh for the following morning and our only venture out that evening was to say our goodbyes to Dave from Monkey Island (who had a night off and so spent it on the mainland), Johanna & Anina from Finland and Ben & Mark (Aka Benmark), two lovable characters who provided a lot of entertainment in our final week on the island with their drunken antics. All of which were on our ferry that morning. We retired early as the productive day had been quite tiring and if I'm honest, we were quite happy with the creature comforts of the hotel room and cable TV.
The following morning, we were on the coach early for our return to the capital city, enduring the Cambodian Karaoke DVD's which the tour companies insist on playing. I'm all for appreciating a country's culture and customs, but 6 hours of piercing, shrill voices over keyboard generated beats and organ riffs is enough for anyone. Fortunately, we had a break from the 'music' in order to jam in an archaic Jackie Chan movie, which despite being dubbed in Khmer, it was subtitled in English; Well, I say English, what I mean is that there were definitely English words but the structuring of sentences were lacking slightly. For example, one character apparently said to another 'Feed. Hero. Find out to have no.' to which the reply was 'This is old ghost. Small wear.' Phnom Penh couldn't come soon enough.
Our luck improved immediately after the bus pulled in and our pre-arranged tuk-tuk driver was ready and waiting to take us to our hostel, which we were immensely impressed with. Going by the name of Me Mates Place, the restaurant/lobby area was decked out in 50's American Diner clad and the staff were all extremely personable and friendly, even if they did have rather bizarre nicknames; one chap was called Tony Montana and another was called McLain, therefore I thought to name the tuk-tuk driver Riggs (there is a reference in there, film bugs will get it). The rest of the evening was spent checking out a few of the sites which we had missed the first time around and whilst we found a brilliant little Mexican place called 'Viva!', we had also stumbled across the seedier side of the nightlife and found ourselves walking through the motherland for elderly Western men pursuing the younger Khmer girls. Needless to say, we exited '94th Street' fairly sharpish.
The following day, Riggs took us to see The Killing Fields, which as with S-21 on our first time around, was very humbling. Even now, over 30 years since Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were ousted, bones are still being unearthed from the ground. Obviously, there are more visible in wet season as the earth is eroded by the rain but we actually saw a few bones and teeth fixed in the soil by the sides of the mass graves. Despite being extremely powerful, it also gave us the opportunity to educate ourselves further on the atrocities committed by the party to their fellow countrymen. For example, in only four years, they had murdered 25% of the population. Also, for years after they were overthrown in 1979, the UN still recognised the Khmer Rouge as being the governing party in Cambodia, simply because Vietnam had established their new government. They were given aid and still retained their seat in the UN, despite all the harrowing actions and the genocide they committed.
The following day, we were heading to Siem Reap in order to witness the more beautiful side to Cambodia in Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. Once again, our 6 hour coach journey was plagued by the karaoke DVD's; what's wrong with a bit of peace and quiet?! In any case, we arrived unscathed at the bus station and once again, we had a tuk-tuk driver to ferry us to the hostel. There was some confusion, however, as we had arrived at a completely different hostel to that which we had booked. The French owner explained that the other place was full and that this was their sister hostel and although the rooms were more expensive, we will still be charged the same rate. So, happy enough with the arrangement, we headed out to check out what Siem Reap had to offer. As it is the gateway for such a tourist attraction, the town itself was pretty much what we had expected. Lots of Western-ran bars and tourist traps, with more of a European feel about it. Funnily enough, we had found out that Johanna from Koh Rong was also in town so we planned to meet up with her at her hostel. We had been told that her place had $1 beds and when we arrived and it was evident why; on the way to the rooftop bar, you walk through a open plan area where the building is literally just a shell and across the floor on either side of the walkway are mattresses with mosquito nets around. Plain & simple and Johanna insists that she had a good nights sleep there! However, we were happy shelling out the extra $3 each for the added comforts of the 4 walls and private bathroom!
The following 2 days were to be arranged around visits to Angkor and as the temples are on a 100km or so site, we had decided to book Mr Jim, the tuk-tuk driver who carted us to our hotel. Day one was to be an afternoon tour, concluding with view of the sunset over the temples and Day two was to be a morning tour, starting at 5am with sunrise over Angkor Wat and other temples afterwards. Day one was pleasant enough, in spite of the steep climbs in the scorching heat and my sandals breaking within 30 minutes. However, it was a slightly disappointing finale as cloud cover meant that we missed the sunset. That evening, we bumped into Jolanda, who we had originally met on the train to Xi'an in China all those months ago and by chance happened across her during our time on Koh Rong. She was accompanied by her new travelling buddy, Agnes and unfortunately as she had only arrived late in the evening, we had to put the beers we had attempted to plan on hold, as Anne and I had to be in bed for our rise at such an ungodly hour.
Fortunately enough, we managed to get a decent enough sleep and so even though we were still very much jaded, we were able to appreciate the beauty that was about to unfold. Taking our place on a mat facing Angkor Wat on the bank of a pond, Anne treated herself to a coffee and we sat & waited. As the cloud cover was quite dense, we thought that once again we were going to miss out but fortunately, there was a break for around an hour, just enough time for us to get some spectacular shots. After being transported to a few more temples, we were done and dusted for around 10am and spent the remainder of the day in a productive fashion. After speaking with Johanna a few nights earlier, she had convinced us to visit a Thai island close to the border called Koh Chang and as we had a few weeks to kill before meeting my friend Eleanor (who arrives on 6th April), we thought that living the island life again would be far superior to tackling Bangkok (which was our initial plan). So, after booking accommodation at Barrio Bonito, an authentic Mexican restaurant and guesthouse, we bobbed through the local market in order to get me some new sandals and maybe pick up another warm weather garment or two. After shopping 'til I dropped (we were in there for about half an hour and that's enough), the evening that followed was another quiet one as we were both shattered and were scheduled to be picked up at 7.30am in the morning for our 12 hour journey into Thailand and onto Koh Chang island.
The second early morning was definitely a killer, yet the journey wasn't actually that bad as it had been broken up along the way. We had one 3 hour journey to the border, then crossing through the two passport bureau's took another hour. We waited in a half-way cafe for a further 2 hours in order for everyone who was taking the same route as us to pass through the border and then we took a mini-bus for a 4 hour drive towards the coast. From there, we took a ferry and finally a taxi when we reached the island, all of which took around 2 hours, meaning we arrived at Barrio Bonito for about 19:45 with two new friends in-tow. We had befriended a lovely lady called Cat from Lincolnshire and a very boisterous character named Ed from Bristol. Both of which checked in to the guesthouse and joined us for some well deserved beers. The couple that run the guesthouse are Julien from France and Mariana from Mexico, both of which were immediately welcoming and as such, we had plans on extending our week-long stay from the beginning! Over the next few days, we became accustomed to Koh Chang and got ourselves back into the island groove by lazing the days away beside the swimming pool and generally just taking the opportunity to relax! Beside spending time with Cat & Ed, we also bumped back into Johanna, as well as two other chaps from Koh Rong called Darcy & Zak but other than a couple of snorkle and fishing trips and just hanging out with the afore mentioned people, as well as a great couple we met on the island called Ben and Mia, it's hard to say where the last 9 days have gone. The fishing trips were brilliant though and after the second one, the guesthouse allowed us to BBQ the catch in the garden the day after. Despite the slight feeling that the days could have been spent rather more productively, it's always good to relax and take things slow, as we've come to learn and we're definitely well rested.
It feels weird to think that our first objective, getting from Manchester to Thailand without flying, is now complete. It has taken 129 days, 19 trains, 11 coaches, 6 boats and 1 motorbike, but we've arrived here in one piece. We've passed through 14 countries so far and for the majority of them, we've felt like we've rushed through one way or another. Obviously, Cambodia was rushed simply because of our stay on Koh Rong, but I don't think that bothered us too much because we truly found a paradise island which is unlikely to be rivalled anywhere else in South East Asia, if not the world. From what we saw of Cambodia, it does seem to be struggling to catch up after the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge regime set them back all those years ago. The people are poor but are extremely friendly, welcoming & personable throughout and they appear to have a determination & will to succeed which is admirable to say the least. However, we're now in Thailand and we're excited about the next few months of travel we have left in this part of the world, especially as this country has so much to offer. From here, we will move onto another island, Koh Maak for a couple of nights before heading up to Bangkok in time for Eleanor's arrival, which is another milestone as it's the first person from home to visit. I think it's fair to say that once we hit the capital, then we can kiss goodbye to our island mentality. Maybe it's a good thing that we're embracing it whilst we still can!
- comments
Mum Once again a great bedtime read. Continue to enjoy and, stay safe xx
Ilse Hello Shaun and Anne. Olen lukenut blogianne melkein joka päivä. Schanghai oli kyllä kamala paikka. Pelkkiä valtvia rakennuksia... Huh, huh. Saarella teillä oli varmaan ihanaa. Missä nyt olette? Onko vatsataudit selätetty? Täällä on melkein kaikki lumet sulaneet. Ainakin kaupunkiakueella. Hannu ja Reetta & ipanat tulevat pääsiäiseksi tänne. Tulee varmaan vilkas viikonloppu. Voikaa hyvin. Ja lisää juttuja ja kuvia.