Cambodia and the road to Singapore

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From Saigon we headed across to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. I had thought that one of the night buses in Vietnam was the bumpiest journey of my life (imagine being woken up as your whole body has left the bed you are laying on) but i was wrong. It was impossible to read as my body jolted relentlessly from side to side, with my arms also moving all over the place but in different directions to the rest of my body. A strange experience. We arrived in Phnom Penh expecting the worst as we had heard from other people that it wasn't the nicest of cities. Maybe because of this review we were pleasantly surprised. The Cambodian people were all very friendly and we spent the afternoon at the national museum and then walked down the river and had a few beers on the roof of the Royal Correspondents Club.

The next day was quite depressing as we spent the morning at the going to S21 and the Killing Fields. I had bought a book about the Khmer Rouge earlier in the trip and had read about the terrible things that happened but nothing that was written down can really prepare you for actually seeing the places these things happened and seeing the faces of everyone that was killed there. It was definitely something i'm glad to have experienced but not something i would want to do again. Just after lunchtime we left Phnom Penh (wishing we could have had a bit longer in the city) and set of to Siem Reap.

We arrived in the evening and found somewhere to stay (our cheapest room yet) and arranged with a tuk tuk driver to pick us up for the next two days and to ferry us about the different temples of the Angkor Wat Complex. The following morning we were up at 4am to catch the sunrise over Angkor Wat. We got half way there and Will realised that he had left a $100 note at our hotel. We went back but unfortunately (though not unexpectedly) it had disappeared. Not only did this somewhat dampen the mood but we also just missed the sunrise! We spent the whole of the next two days going to the numerous temples most of which were absolutely awesome. I can't remember them all now but can show you photos when i get back. By the end of the two days though we were completely templed out and had pretty much agreed to not visit another one. That night we went to a restaurant that served crocodile, snake, kangaroo and ostrich, though we had to cook it ourselves. Kangaroo and ostrich were delicious, crocodile tasted quite odd and had a weird sort of sweetness to it and snake was pretty much just horrible. It was really tough and didn't taste of much, but perhaps we just weren't cooking it right, who knows.

The next day after only a few days in Cambodia we got the bus back to Bangkok. When we arrived we were expecting the worst after last time when we couldn't wait to leave. To our surprise however Bangkok now seemed fine. Whether it was just we were shocked the first time as it was the first place we had been or because the Vietnamese were so much worse i'm not sure, but it seemed quite chilled.

The next day was mostly spent trying to pick up the credit card mum and dad had sent me from the British Embassy. After hours of waiting around needless to say it wasn't there and had somehow ended up in Hong Kong. We had also had another experience of being taken to a tailors by a tuk tuk driver, only this time for them to get really quite abusive and swearing at me, so we left.

That night we got a bus down to Chumpon, before getting a ferry over to Ko Phang Nan the next morning. We arrived at Chumpon at about 3 or 4 in the morning and had a few hours wait for the ferry. Ko Phang Nan was quite a cool place and we spent the next 4 or 5 nights there. There isn't that much to do really except go to the beach and get drunk. We spent the first night on a beach that the Lonely Planet had said was the best for swimming (it wasn't and on later inspection there were two beaches with the same name). While it wasn't the best for swimming it was still pretty idyllic and it was empty except for the couple who owned it, a thai guy and an english lady. We had some great food, as the bloke used to be a professional chef in Bangkok, kayaked around and had a failed attempt at crab hunting before heading back to the main place the next day. The next two nights were extremely drunken, with buckets of whiskey for about 2 quid being sold on the beach. There was also the nightly entertainment of different things involving fire. Skipping ropes on fire (from which we both sustained injuries, though not as bad as one girl we saw the following morning who had both arms fully bandaged), a ring on fire which you had to dive threw and fire limbo, which i somehow ended up singing the hair on the back of my head on.

We were going to fly down to Singapore to catch our flight to Australia but we left booking our ticket to late and so had to get a train down through Malaysia. From the hotel in Ko Phang Nan to Singapore took about 2 days in total including a ferry, two bus journeys and a train. In Malaysia we had 5 or 6 hours in a place called Penang which was pretty cool and was worth the journey to be able to see. When we eventually got to Singapore we dumped our bags at a hotel (as the flight was later that evening) and spent the day at the zoo. Our flight was slightly delayed that evening but after a lot of travelling we were finally off to Australia.

I'm a bit behind at the moment as i write this me and will are about to head off to New Zealand in a couple of days after having gone down the whole coast of Australia. Will try to catch up. South East Asia was awesome, with highlights being trekking, Halong Bay, Hoi an, the food everywhere and Angkor Wat. Though i'll be happy to never see another temple

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