Cambodia, the runs and Thailand

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Apologies for the long gap until this blog entry after my last one, Cambodia has sporadic internet but we always seemed to pack too much into our days to spend an hour at the computer!

When i last wrote, we had just arrived in Cambodia and were trying to work the place out. Not sure if i wrote about the ex-pat chap in Hoi An who filled us with dread about Cambodia being a wild west town and full of guns, grenades and scams out to part you with your dollars faster than anywhere in the world. Well, it was all tripe and we both had a wonderful time there and felt very safe (apart from on the roads!).

Kampot was an old french colonial town which had seen better days but had a charm about it. The guesthouse was very much a 'hippy' place which felt more like a commune. No locks on the doors and nowhere else to go in the evenings but its setting was stunning. On the banks of a vast river with a jetty for swimming off and fish to nibble your toes whilst sitting reading a book.
We spent very little time there however and our favourite day of the whole trip was going off with a tuk-tuk driver on a drive round the coutryside. We stopped at some caves where some young lads hung out and showed us round, no doubt laughing at our attempts to squeeze our western frames through tiny gaps and climbing up boulders! Driving through the countryside gave us arm and face ache! Everywhere we went there were smiling, waving people and kids who were just so friendly and hospitable. We went to Kep to devour their famous crabs and visited a pepper plantation too.

After spending the few days on the beach in Vietnam, we felt we hadn't earned any more beach time so we skipped Sihnoukville and headed for Phnom Penh for a couple of days. We stocked up on essentials which were unavailable elsewhere such as suncream and spent a couple of days wandering. We visited the killing fields and the S-21 prison where untold horrors were committed. This was extremely moving and the realisation that this only occurred just before we were born made it even more upsetting. There were pictures of many of the victims including small babies and elderly people. The phrase 'never again' often gets used but somehow we never learn.....




We traveled on to Siam Reap for the main event, the big one, the piece de resistance- The Temples at Angkor. They say the first glimpse of Angkor Wat can take your breath away so we decided to heat there for sunrise. The alarm was set for 4.30 and we got driven in a tuk-tuk (along with hundreds of others) there for sunrise. It was magnificent and well worth the early start. From there we had a day with the tuk-tuk to take us to some of the far flung temples knowing that we were going to cycle to the closer ones the next day. We arrived back thoroughly dusty but very impressed.

There is a new craze in Siam Reap and it is called Dr Fish. Basically it is a paddling pool full of these little fresh water fish and you pay a couple of dollars to sit with your feet in it. The fish then come and nibble all of the hard skin off your feet whilst being the most tickly thing known to man! very strange but it was a fun thing to do after a hot day of walking.

The next day was spent cycling round the temples which became an exercise in trying to catch the popular ones at the least crowded times of the day to avoid the thousands upon thousands of asian package tourists (Japanese, Chinese, Korean). We succeeded to some extent but it meant cycling in the heat of the day which left us completely shattered. We had a day of resting and went to a rehabilitation centre for landmine victims in Siam Reap which was very interesting for me professionally.

From Siam Reap we had two choices, a 3 hour bus journey to Battambang or a 6-9 hour boat ride. We convinced each other that as we were in no rush, the boat would be pleasant! We did not factor in that it was the dry season and so the river became borderline un-navigable at times. The journey was quite pretty and there were yet more smiling, waving friendly people but it did take 10 hours on a wooden bench crammed in with some pretty inconsiderate backpackers and there were a couple of dicy moments when the boat grounded and the engine cut out. We managed to soaked by a passing boat and each swallowed a mouthful of mucky river water.

We arrived in one piece and ended up in an absolute hole of a guesthouse (for which i take all of the blame!) and immediately organised our transport out of there giving us a full day to explore. Unfortunately Alex became quite ill in the night and was confined to the room for the next 36 hours. We managed to move to a cleaner guesthouse and I was kept busy going and getting water and the blandest food i could find. When trying to book a bus ticket to Bangkok, a guesthouse owner had told us that he was getting a taxi the whole way to catch a flight and would we like the back seat in the taxi. We ended up paying only a little more than the bus fare but doing it in half the time and with 'comfort' breaks whenever Alex needed them.

We are too old for the Kao San Road in Bangkok now and so we stated in a lovely place in the commercial district. Having done the main tourist sights on a previous holiday to Thailand, we went to Lumphini Park and admired some of the biggest shopping malls in Asia (more fun than it sounds!).

Now on Ko Lanta in Southern Thailand and have completely lucked out on our accommodation. The cheapest rooms on the Island just happen to be attached to a resort with a stunning infinty pool looking out to sea. Feel like a bit of a fraud considering some of the rooms there cost 70 pounds a night!

Sorry again for the long gap between blogs!

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