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Published: April 14th 2010
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Sua s'dei (hello in Khymer!)
I hope you are well back in blighty! Hows the weather? is it Spring yet? We are both looking forward to seeing you all next month.
Apologies with not writing sooner, its been difficult finding an Internet cafe with computers that work in some parts!
Well picking up from our last blog entry I believe that we had just left Hong Kong and arrived in Phuket in Thailand. Unfortunately, we just didn't take to Phuket....a bit too touristy for us, there was a million people per square metre of beach. I think we had been spoilt by the pristine beaches of NZ so the amount of sun loungers beer cans and dare I say it lady boys surprised us! Having moved on to several similar towns in Thailand, we decided to cut our losses and took a 12 hour night bus to Bangkok, and after a fab night on the town and some retail therapy we booked a bus to the Cambodian border....
Ah, the Cambodian border, our first real adventure....in true Thai style the scammers descended upon us as we left the bus, (the bus stops 2k from the border and
you have to take a tuk tuk the rest of the way)It was dark by this point and me, Mike and Jamie, a Thai Bo fighter who was training in Asia who we had been chatting to on the bus boarded a Tuk Tuk to the border. Alas, it was not meant to be as the driver took a left off the main road and before we knew it we were in the middle of no where with 2 men shouting "welcome to the Cambodia border" and trying to "helpfully" take our bags off the Tuk Tuk for us. We figured out pretty quickly that this was not the border judging by the fake security uniforms, lack of visitors, electricity and general non borderness. After a heated debate we managed to get the hell out by speaking the only language our tuk tuk driver understood, "drive us to the real border or you wont be paid" with that he sped off like a bat out of hell! although get this, he still asked for a 20 bhat tip claiming he hadn't change for the hundred we gave him, the cheek of it!
An hour later and after the next
attempted scam of the real border security trying to tell us a VISA is 40 dollars not 20 we were through to Poipet in Cambodia and we had no choice but to stay the night (Poipet is full of casinos and general sleaziness, our guest house had a sign above the door that requested we not bring our drugs, fire arms or indeed grenades into the hotel - we of course complied!) I don't think we slept a wink that night! We were on the first Bus to Siem Reap the next morning, Jamie our Thai Bo friend was off to another part of Cambodia for training, if you are reading this Jamie, best of luck in your next fight... and border crossing!
Siem Reap was an amazing place, as was the rest of Cambodia, which is nothing at all like Poipet. Siem Reap is a beautiful town, which is home to some of the most lovely and hospitable people we have met on our trip so far. We stayed in a family run guest house and gorged our selves on Khymer classics such as Amok fish curry (like Thai but no where near as hot!) Other than eating
and sleeping lots (and bribing the staff of the nearby hotel with 5 bucks so we could use there pool) we visited the temples of Angkor Wat, the eighth wonder of the World, used in filming such "epics" as Tomb Raider... The temples themselves were truly breath taking and we had a fantastic day scrambling about them with our guide Kong, but I think the best bit was scaling one of the temples and sitting on the roof of it watching the sunset.
Next on the list was the capital city Phnom Penh a wondrous maze of roads filled with more speeding mopeds than you could shake a chopstick at. The cambodian moto is theres never too much stuff (or indeed people) to fit on the one bike. One of the first mopeds we saw had 1 man, 3 kids and on the back was mum carrying a dog under each arm. We both needed new underwear each time we crossed the road or "running the gauntlet" as we called it. Phnom Penh was a mixed bag from golden palaces and temples to museums showing the recent atrocities of the khymer rouge. I think our visit to S-21 will
haunt us for a long time. After 3 days we had toured the town and it was off to the beach again in Sihanoukville, Cambodia's premiere seaside town.
After bumming on the beach with our banana shakes we realised it was all too much work, so we decided to get a boat to one of the remote islands so we could really relax!!. A three hour boat ride with a half hour breakdown in the middle (and much sea sickness on Marie's part!) we arrived at our paradise island. It was picture post card perfect. Turquoise waters, clear blue sky and white sand. We stayed in a beach shack, which had a bed, a loo and a shower (which was a bucket with some water in it!) we had no electricity, except for a few hours each night, not that that mattered a bit. we spent the days swimming and snorkeling and fussing the resident beach dogs and the evenings having BBQ seafood and gathered round the campfire with the 14 other guests. Heaven!
After returning from Ko Rong island we decided it was time to move on from Cambodia and we arranged our Visas for Vietnam! We
have been here for a few days, and we will tell you more in our next blog installment!
Lots of Love to you all!
Marie and Mike
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