Sophie's birthday, the lush hotel and our week with lot and mol!

---

hey all,

just sitting in my very nice hotel in Siem Reap - a birthday present for Sophie from her parents... thank you John and Yvonne!

Its been ages since i updated this, so appologies for that! Laos seems like ages ago - when in fact it was last week! Vang Viang was a very short stop over and i would ahve loved to have stayed longer! our bus ride their was annoying as i was practically sitting on top of the driver and he kept nudging me with his elbow every time he changed gear! It was beautifully hot and the faint sound of "Friends"met our ears when we arrived! Found a cheap place to stay and bumped into the boys we met on our first overnight bus! small world! And getting smaller.. we then bumped into the german man we sat near on the slow boat, and have bumped into him about 12 times since, even in a different country! "The German" (our nick name for him) asked what I was studying at university and thought I said German not Drama, so blabbed on in German for about half an hour, whilst i looked blankly at him! That night we lay and watched friends in a bar which was amazing!

Went tubing in the morning, so got up extra early and no one else was there! tubing is basically a huge tyre ring, which you sit in and float down the river, with numerous bars along the way. they tell you it takes aroudn 2 hours, whihc is a total lie as it took us over 3 hours and we paddled with our flipflips the whole way!!! after about 10 mins i hear sophie screaming so i try to get to her, soaking myself in the process - SHE'D SEEN A SNAKE GOING INTO THE WATER! shock horror - this is the end of the world.
but oh no, it only gets worse!
we try to remain calm, with sophie randomly blerting out "it was so big!". trying to recover from this we admire the view but then the water starts to get murky and i cant see the bottom but theres no way of getting out so i have to just keep drifting, no doubt with the snake right underneath me! im just starting to relax when this funning flying thing zooms past my head - we've entered spider central - and they bloody fly!!!!!!!! They are everywhere and i ahve no control over my movement! snakes and spiders are two of the three things I am most petrified of - all we need now is a shark to complete this story - thankfully we didnt encounter one!
Sophie then found a lizard on her leg, becomes uncontrolable and hysterical and loses one of her flipflops! bye bye shoe!
then i get stuck on a rock, stranded and sophie is now in the rapids, in the distance!, I have to basically get into the river to get my rubber ring off this rock and then enter the rapids to cathc up with soph who is now a small blob in the distance!
managed to survive the rapids, but suddenly i sophie sees what looks like moving logs coming towards us. I am in a very bad mood and using very bad language shout about there being "too many ******* rocks and i bet its a ******* alligator!"
fortuately it is not an alligator, but we have no way of stopping ourselves from getting closer to whatever it is. then soph yells "I can see antlers" and we realise it is around 8 water buffalo in the river their antlers coming towards us!!! (i freak out as i had been chased by water buffalo at the elephants place and they are also known as being some of the most dangerous animals in the world!) i was not looking forward to having to manouver my way around antlers in a rubber ring that could easily be punctured! but thankfully they got out just before we reached them! by this point we are sunburnt, hot, tired and stressed and sophie has lost a shoe and found a mini lizard on her leg! this finishes with us narrowly escaping all the ebove, followed by the flying spiders!

so that was tubing... onwards and upwards to Vietienne. We were spilt up on our coach journey for the first time and poor sophie had to sit at the front of the bus like she was our tour guide! Upon arrival there was literlly nowhere to stay if you hadnt booked - we hadnt - so we ened up in a nice hotel! what a shame...! however when we opened our bathroom door we found our shower curtain was pink and of the power puff girls cartoon!
We headed back to Joma - a nice cafe where we had previously had cake, for dinner and lunch the next day! We also got our cambodian visas and booked our bus tickets for the over night bus that night!

The over night bus was an actual disaster! The air con exploaded over our seats when we stopped at a serivce station soaking our seats with water, meaning that we had to spend the night lying on peoples bags in the aisle as they hadnt got enough room for the luggage in the compartment! I was covered in bruises the next day and very irritable! Neither of us had more than 3 hours sleep! and I got kicked in the head!

Arrived in Pakse and decided to try to go by local bus to the 4000 islands - which was an experience and not cheaper than the coach!!! sopmeone tried to sell me fried frogs and we were squashed in and covered in dirt by the end! Met a couple called Jenette and Brian, who we later met again on our travels to Cambodia!
Stayed in DonDet in the 4000islands. beautiful weather, hammocks to fall asleep in and amazing views, however there wasnt much to do and there was only electricity from 6 pm- 9pm, which meant no fan and no light! Also we had a squat loo with no flush!
however we did go on a bike ride to another island an saw some amazing waterfalls!

Cambdia: the place of bridges! literally they are everywhere! antother disasterous journey. we got on 2 boats and 5 minibuses and were hearded abbout like cattle! Yet again the air con exploaded (are we cursed?!) this time over all our bags, then as we were zooming along the dirt tracks the boot flung open and all our bags fell out at top speed narowly missing a woman on a motor bike. many bags were ripped and all were dirty! Then we killed a beautiful bird, which we had to stop for while the driver stopped and took a eather from it so we now think that maybe this type of bird is now extinct! At the boarder we walked from Laos to Cambodia which was funny! they kept cramming us in to the minibus overloading it until they coundt squeeze any more in so they put them on the roof! it was extremely dirty and dusty with many pointless stops! Yet again we arrived after our 17 hour journey to find there was nowhere to stay! Guesthouse 1 said they had rooms, but when we arrived they infact didnt! after aroudn 2 hours of loking late at night, being offered drugs left right and centre and it being pitch black we foudn somewhere that wasnt value for money bnut it had a bed and thats all we wanted! Sophie was literally black as she had been sitting next to the window and i couldnt stop laughing!
After showers we got into bed and crashed out!

We breakfasted at Bodhi Tree, which was lush but way too expensive to stay in for our time in Phnom Penh. We decided to stya in a nice hotel the ight before Sophies birthday so she could wake up in nice surroundings. Met Sophie's fmaily friend Maude who is working in a HIV orphanage in Phnom Penh for lunch and spent the afternoon on our balcony eating chocolate and drinking wine! We watched the sunset at lakeside which was beautiful and booked two rooms there one for us and one for lot and mol (two old school friends who we are meeting up with). Back at riverside where our hotel was we met lot and mol for drinks and consumed the entire contense of our minibar!

Sophie's Birthday:
We breakfasted at our hotel, with Maude and Sophie opened her presents. We then went to Russian Market and went on a bot of a crazy spending spree! We had lunch at the Lazy Ghecko with Maude, Lot and Mol, then went for a massge by blind people! it wasnt exactly relaxing and i laughed pretty much the whole way through as he kept tickling my feet!
We all dresed up and went out for a very big dinner and then drinks, joined by one of Maude's friends. This was the beginning of what seems like a year of drinking, late nights, early mornings and of course... hangovers!
That night I was running away from a dog when my foot fell through a loose floorboard above the lake, cutting my leg and foot and losing a shoe in the process!

On our second day Lot mol and us had breakfast at the Lazy Gheko and watched Moulin Rouge in their TV room. That afternoon Soph and I went to Maude's orphanage to meet and play with the children which was awsome!!! All but 3 had HIV but all seemed healthy and were all so excited to see us! Again that night we met for dinner and drinks!
The third day was extremely touristy visiting the Killing Fields and the Palace. Both were amazing and im glad i went.

We all travelled down to Siem Reap the next day and it was the best bus journey so far! very smooth and no hiccups! We went our separate ways in our different tuk tuks, lot and mol heading for their cheap guest house and Soph and I heading for our amazing hotel! (with a pool and gym - not that ive used the latter!) after making the most of our luxurius surroundings and a quick dip in our pool, yes thats right you guessed it, we went for more drinks, with lot and mol!
The next day we went to Ankor Wat, which is a mission. Temples are interesting but there are about a million to see and we ended up spending the whole day their, drowning in out own sweat! They are pretty amazing and I got very carried away with the phototaking! We also climbed to the top of a very steep hill for a very disappointing sunset! to recover from the day we went for drinks!
Today we had a lush breakfast, followed by me returning to bed for a couple of hours! The four of us then spent the rest of the day by our pool, in the baking hot sun! I wish i could travel the world constantly like this!
No drinks tonight as I was nursing the hangover from HELL this morning and have been all day!!!

Congratulations Alex, Jon and Tobes on your new baby girl!

xxx

---

Comments

[yvonne]

glad you are bloggong again!
delighted a litle bit of luxury has gone down well. Sounds fun meeting up with Lot and Mol and Maud, too. You are clearly moving into seasoned travellers and less troubled by all the things thrown at you. Look forward to seeing some more photos. Love Yvonne