For want of something better to do while I figure out the best ways of getting to my next destinations, I headed off to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep. Doi Suthep is the mountain that sits on the edge of the city of Chiang Mai. The wat (temple) was built in 1383 when holy relics were carried there on the back of a white elephant which then dropped dead from exhaustion. Today there was a non-white elephant outside entertaining the tourists. Behind the temple is the Doi Suthep National Park but I had no transport to get around it, so just [View Full Entry]

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The train to Chiang Mai left Bangkok at 7.30pm last night. It was due to arrive in Chiang Mai at 9.20. Instead everyone is woken up at 4.30. In the trains they have fold-away sleeper bunks and I'm thinking why do they wake us so early to fold the beds back away. Wouldn't about 7 be better? Then I notice everyone else is putting on their packs and taking their luggage. Something was amiss here. I got my stuff and followed the others out into the rainy darkness. Turned out the tracks had been flooded out again and we had to [View Full Entry]

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Today was not the best day. I got about three hours sleep due to a group of all-night rowdy drunks in the bar of the guesthouse next door. In the middle of the night a girl at one of the guesthouses screamed "shut up!" at the top of her lungs and I did the same a while later in stronger language. By 6.30 I'd had more than enough (but I'd had to wait till my guesthouse opened up for the morning) and I went next door and gave them a piece of my mind. There were six of them, I found [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday I left Siem Reap and caught the bus back to Poipet. I didn't have enough money left for a taxi, even a shared one. I really like Cambodia. Siem Reap is rather unpreposing when you first come into it, with its mud-edged streets and random ramshackle buildings (basically a poor town that has tourist dollars coming into some quarters but not others), but its a very nice town. If you judge a town by whether it has a fruit bat colony in the middle (and I do) then its a great town. I had absolutely no problems of the thievery [View Full Entry]

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This morning the restaurant at my guesthouse was playing "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" on dvd, which I took as a good omen. South of Siem Reap is a body of water called Tonle Sap, the largest lake in south-east Asia. And at the top of the lake is the Prek Toal waterbird sanctuary, home to tens of thousands of rare birds. My two reasons for coming to Cambodia (apart for the visa run of course) were to see Angkor and to go to Prek Toal. I hadn't been able to find much about it before I left (mainly [View Full Entry]

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Temples done, now for birds... The compound of Preah Khan is filled with forest, in which have been recorded 120 species of bird. That was where I was heading today. On the way I got a little sidetracked. Halfway along the road between the checkpoint and Angkor itself I suddenly saw a big sign that somehow I'd completely missed the last two days. The sign said "Angkor Zoo". Well, what was I to do? I cycled down the rutted dirt road, kind of dreading the conditions I might see at the zoo, but it turned out to not be too bad. [View Full Entry]

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I don't know how long the Big Circuit is but I spent eight hours on the bike today. I'm a bit sore. I passed Angkor Wat without stopping and headed on to Bayon. It was raining a bit yesterday when I was there so I didn't really get to explore the outside of the temple well. Angkor Wat is the most famous of Angkor's temples but Bayon is my favourite. When it was new it was basically just like one huge piece of artwork. It is made up of lots of stone spires with a giant face peering from each [View Full Entry]

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Opening credits roll... "Long long ago, before even time itself, the mighty civilisation of Angkor was created. At its height there were over two million people within its boundaries. It was the largest settlement on Earth. But the people of Angkor grew too many and the land could not support them, and like the lowly locust who foolishly swarms and consumes all his resources and dies, thus did the city of Angkor fall. For a thousand years it was lost to the minds of men, hidden by the all-enveloping jungles of Cambodia, until eventually it was rediscovered. By a Frenchman..." The [View Full Entry]

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I forgot to mention the mosquito bites I got at Sam Phraya (because I know that's exciting). Despite the tent being mosquito-netted they still got in. I have 26 bites on my left foot and 28 on my right. And in Thailand its the year 2549 not 2006: I aged 543 years without even knowing. Anyway, so I caught the bus from Morchit terminal in Bangkok for 207 Baht. They gave me a free meal, just like on a plane! Well, OK, it was a muffin and coffee. Well, not exactly coffee: a sachet of coffee, a sachet of sugar, a [View Full Entry]

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ODE TO THE CROCODILE HUNTER Steve Irwin was a man, A mighty man was he, He wrestled with the crocodiles, And drank cobra venom for tea. There wasn't a creature he couldn't catch, And swing about his head, But because of the ocean's gentlest creature, Steve Irwin now is dead. TRIBUTE TO THE STINGRAY The stingray is a fearsome beast, A most mighty fish is he, He swims where-ever he damn well likes, And he kills with awful glee. Sometimes he's happy and playful, Sometimes he likes to kill, But that's all right, he's still my friend, I call him 'Stabby [View Full Entry]

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