Chapter 12: Cambodia to Malaysia

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Oh dear oh dear oh dear...it's been a while hasn't it. Well, brace yourselves...
A long long time ago in a country far far away (Cambodia) is where we left off. I believe we were still in Phnom Penh. Having a few drinks in our favourite bar, The Magic Sponge (full of British expats, Cambodia is full of British people for some reason), we spied a poster asking for volunteers at an orphanage in town to teach, help with building work, or just hang about offering passive support. We became instantly enthused by the idea and arranged to meet Mr Samith at his orphanage-cum-school and see if we could put in some constructive time in our otherwise slothful travelling lives. We spent about two hours with the kids, sitting in on a class two (unprepared and ill informed) Irish girls were taking. However, the place was oly 3 months old and was lacking in structure... about 20 minutes in 'break time'was called, and class never resumed. We had a nice afternoon just mucking about with the kids though, which is the main reason we found Cambodia such a warm and welcoming place to be. People will just hand you their children in bars.
Anyway, whe we returned to the guesthouse, our tuktuk driver told us, "that place, it was not a good place". Unfortunately he didn't have enough English to elaborate on this, but it had something to do with money. So, that left us with our wallets $10 lighter and a slightly sour taste in our mouths.
So that was the end of the Louise and Amy do Charity Stuff gig. Nevermind, we had places to be. We headed off to Siem Reap, a tourist city in the west of Cambodia, the base point for tours of the famous Angkor Wat temple complex. Hundreds and hundreds of Khmer temples were built, and then forgotten about, until the French rediscovered them and put them on the tourist 'to do' list. We plumped for a 3 day temple pass (the site is massive) after hearing good things, and organized our one bike between the two of us to zip us round. Some of the temples, like Bayon, were absolutely beautiful and wonderfully intricate. Others were not so good. The star attraction, Angkor Wat, was breath taking from far away, but lacked the detail of some of the others. This slight disappointment was eased a little by a celebrity spot, namely Ruby Wax. We also heard Robbie Williams was in town doing aid work, but alas, Ruby Wax was our lot.
That night we hit the town, cooling ourselves off in the Angkor What? Bar (get it?). The next day the terrible combinaion of scorching heat, bad heads and lots and lots of wats got the better of us. We only managed half a day, and then decided not to pursue our third day at all, which probably makes us bad, uncultured people.
Onwards and downwards, we then headed south back to Bangkok for a night for practical reasons, then on a local bus to Pattaya, Thailand. Amy's dad has a house here, and foolishly lent us the keys. Here we cavorted in the lap of luxury, the air con, swimming pool and double beds being a welcome change from dangerously positioned fans, matresses on the floor and bamboo walls. In the evenings we explored the fantastical (read: crazy) nightlife that Pattaya offers, bouncing from go go bar to beer bar, to minus 20 degrees 'íce bars', to asian Elvis impersonator shows, to another go go bar, to ladyboy shows, and all the rest of it down neon lit Walking Street.
After we'd had our fill we hopped on a plane (fancy!) to Ko Samui, the biggest of the Thai Islands in the south. Ko Samui is also the most developed of the islands, and caters for the lads on holiday/honeymooners/health spa crowd, so we moved on pretty quickly after sme sun, sand and sea, to the smallest and least developed island, Ko Tao. Ko Tao is famed for is diving spots, although diving frnkly scares the hell out of me, and although Amy was an active member of the uni Diving Society, her ear problems meant that paying a LOT of money for a dive that might just have to be aborted, was not something she wanted to do. Despite this, we spent a good 8 or 9 days on Ko Tao, which never failed to provide us with stunning sunsets, clear water, good beaches and many a food and drink place. We did go on a really, really good snorkelling trip around the island though, so we didn't waste ALL our time - the coral and fish were unbelievable.
The moon was starting to look suspiciously full, so we decided to leg it to Ko Phangan and celebrate this fact. We stayed in Ban Tai, about 20 minutes from the craziness of Hat Rin, the Full Moon Party base. We headed down to the infamous beach for the Full Moon Warm Up Party on the 18th, and then the big one, the actual full moon on the 20th April. We heard a scary satistic that 2 falang (white people) a month are sectioned in the psychiatric ward on Ko Phangan a month due to over zealous partying. However, these were both good nights- ask us for details.
By now we're hungry for some culture, some buildings older than 20 years, some places to go other than bars, some people to talk to other than tourists. So, time for Malaysia. We took a bus from Thong Sala down to Penang Island via Hat Yai, and it's it's capital, Georgetown, that I write you from now. Malaysia is a welcome change from the saminess we started to feel in Thailand - it's an electic mix of people, of foods, of religions. We've enjoyed pottering about Chinatown, and Litte India, checking out the British legacy of the forts and grand colonial buildings, having a ridiculously good posh lunch at the fabulous Eastern and Oriental Hotel, and seeing it all twinkling from up high on Penang Hill.
Tomorrow brings different things for both of us - Amy is heading to the Cameron Highlands as she wishes to check out Malaysias tea and strawberry fields, trek through the jungle and try to find Jim Thompson (wikipedia it!). I on the other hand am ventuing off to the big KL to puzzle my way around the city and then perhaps take in Melaka too before we reconvene in Singapore on the 2nd May... it's exciting times, and we can't quite believe that Asia is nearly over - nearly halfway through, nearly halfway home. Keep messages from home coming through, we do love to hear about the bad weather over there.
Lots of love, Louise and Amy

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Comments

[charles]

ruby wax
Hi, I'm one of those expats living in Siem Reap and the night you saw ruby wax, RICKY MARTIN was in town, drinking near psar char.........