Another long bus journey, another load of crap aircon, fixed seats and bumpy roads. However at the first stop there was a lady selling deep fried crickets... so I bit the bullet. And the cricket too. It wasn't altogether bad... and certainly better than some food i've been cooked before! C-Pop Cambodian pop music seems to commonly be a dubious fusion of Khymer and mispronounced gramatically poor english. Now I know given my past posts im not in a position to judge but... Cambodian Roads They are bloody awful, they really are. And this is the dry season. I dread to [View Full Entry]

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I think im crap at adjusting to the heat and the long days in the sun, so I spent most of today asleep and feeling crap. About 5 litres of water and i'm back up to 99%, but not the 100% that I require to go and eat locusts and cockroaches! [View Full Entry]

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Temples. Temples. Temples IT gets a little tiring looking round so many temples. During the day most are washed out by the harsh light. For those coming to see Ankor I would recommend a 3 day pass ($40) and a motorbike driver ($7/day). Go to the temples early in the morning and late in the day, and do something else during the middle. They are much more atmospheric at these times. The Landmine Museum In the afternoon I went to see the Landmine museum. IT was located out of town down a very unmade road, and if you didn't know it [View Full Entry]

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The Old Market I started the day of in Siem Riep's old market. It was as expected, catering mainly for tourists on the outside and the locals on the inside with its wet market, baskets of deep fried locusts - and blood and guts a plenty. The cockroachs taunted me... "be brave, eat me... do it!" but I didn't. Not yet... but I will before I leave. The temples of Ankor There are si\o many fantastic temples around Ankor, the most famous of course being Ankor Wat. Its nice to spend some time in each of them, as they have very [View Full Entry]

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Into Cambodia The bus that took us across the border was an hour late leaving, had dubious airconditioning (they just circulated hot air) and was certainly a far cry from the 'luxury' that I had been told I would receive. On the plus side I found out that the person sitting next to me had paid 6 times as much as me for her tickets, which of course softened the blow. Around the Cambodian we ended up changing busses 3 times (and avoided being scammed into changing money at famously bad rates in spite of the attemtps of the drivers to [View Full Entry]

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IM going back to Bangkok, so unless I have time I wont post todays blog [View Full Entry]

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Goodbye Kho Tao I completed my final two dives, both on new sites, before grabbing a spicy papaya salad for lunch. It was from the grimiest stall ever, but the lady working it was friendly, so I thought what the hell. Nothing like diahorrea to help a long journey... although thankfully this was not the case. I said goodbye to Kho Tao, and borded the ferry to the promised land. Well, the mainland at least. Thai Sleeper Trains I slept for most of the journey from Kho Tao to Chumporn in spite of the freezing aircon and the hard plastic seats. [View Full Entry]

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Brekky Pad Thai. Dayglo orange. This reminded me of the sweet and sour we had in bolivia which looked like it had been cooked in a nuclear reactor. Diving I had the final two dives of my deep specialty. The first involved a free descent into the deep blue with nothing to see - not the bottom, not the pinacles and after the first few seconds not even the surface. We dropped all the way down to the cold milky thermocline. I was a bit pissed off that I didnt think to lower my wrist, and as such my computer recorded [View Full Entry]

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After being rudely awaken by my alarm I set out to try and find out what thai people have for breakfast. The question "what do Thai people have for breakfast?" certainly confused the girl at the small cafe I was sat in, and eventually she bought me a plate of rice topped with chicken, and option spicy sauce. Also I got bought an insanely bitter cup of coffee, and I didnt even realise it was supposed to be white until I held it up to the light! The two morning dives signified the completion of my nitrox course, as well as [View Full Entry]

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I awoke just before docking, and got my things together before barging my way out onto the jetty and straight through the touts to the town beyond. I found a place to stay and a place to dive - the two most important things! I have wanted to do some specialty courses for a while - Enriched Air and Deep Diving and decided that with Ko Tao being a famous place to learn that this would be where I would do these courses. Of course the flip side is that that meant spending all day in the classroom.... I had forgotten [View Full Entry]

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