Blogs from Angkor, North, Cambodia, Asia - page 84

Funny things can happen when you leave your shoes outside the door overnight. As is the custom, I left my shoes outside the front door of my guesthouse last night. When I slipped my foot in to them this morning I noticed that my left foot seemed a bit cramped. When I went to dump it out, out popped a frog. I’m not sure what kind of omen that was but I think it was a sign for rain, but more on that later. My driver and I headed out at 9:00 AM to pick up where I left off yesterday. Our first stop was Preah Khan, a twelfth century temple. To get there you have to cross a bridge with statues of men pulling a large serpent like creature that runs the length of the ... read more

Hello People. From where I last left off, I was in Bangkok, and I spent a few more days looking around and checking out all the crazy cheap clothes and DVDs and stuff like that, but after a few days I got a bit bored again and decided to head to Cambodia. I bought a ticket for just 250 Baht, which is about 4 pounds, all the way from one country to another, I couldnt believe it. The day before I left I pumped into Ben and Anne, friends from the Cook Islands, right at the beginning of my trip. It was totally by chance, I had heard that they were in Bangkok, then I saw them walking down the street, so I spent the day watching films and buying crap with them, which was ... read more

There is nothing like disembarking from the bus at the Siem Reap bus station. Literally, hundreds of tuk-tuk drivers are pulling you and fighting for your business so they can drive you to a guesthouse (and hopefully lock you in for some temple sightseeing). Loved it. Our first day in Siem Reap, we met up with John, an American from Florida, who we met a few days earlier in Phnom Penh. The three of us negotiated with a tuk-tuk to drive to see the sunset on one temple. We bought a three day pass, for $40 each, and it allows entry the late afternoon prior to your first day. We saw the sunset our first afternoon, our second day, we rented bicycles heading to the closer temples and our final day we jumped in a tuk-tuk ... read more

We took a bus from Phnom Penh over to Siem Reap so we could spend a few days looking around the Temples at Angkor. We got off the bus in Siem Reap and were surrounded by about 15 tuk-tuk drivers all wanting to take us to the hotel that they got commission for. We found one that was prepared to take us to where we wanted to go, and headed off to our hotel. That afternoon we spent some time wandering around Siem Reap. At around 5pm that evening the heavens opened and it absolutely pissed down. The whole town was under water so we had to have dinner at the hotel restaurant with the frogs that came out to play in the rain. The next morning we were feeling energetic enough to hire mountain bikes ... read more

Well this is it. We have finally arrived at one of the destinations I was most excited about seeing on my travells and it certainly did not dissapoint. We made our way overland from Laos into Thailand, stayed the night in Surin and then headed down into Cambodia through the O'smach border crossing beacuse we had read in 'The Lonely Planet' that the border crossing from Laos into Cambodia through the 4,000 islands, Si Phan Don is impassiable and very expensive. In reality the book is now over a year out of date and not only is the crossing simple with the addition of a new road and relatively cheap depending on the day you travel, (weekends have an added 'overtime' fee?) it also offers a visa on the border. Nevermind, you learn! And through our ... read more