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Published: September 29th 2007
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I know im jumping abit forward here but I have written a blog for the stag and wedding but am waiting to get my pictures back from a certain groom.Just got to add it was great seeing everyone and the wedding was an amazing day,congratulations to both of you!!!!!The fun and games are in England are over and its back to some serious travelling again.I left the wedding party on Sunday evening,after a great afternoon sat around Mike's uncles pool and a little worse for wear.Big thanks to Papa Geoff for dropping me at Abbeywood station so I could catch the last train from Euston to Manchester that night.My flight left at seven the following morning and feeling the most tired I have ever felt,I checked my pack and went to find something tasty for my belly.Flights now have begun to blend into each other but flying with UAE airlines was as comfortable as an eighteen hour flight could be.I touched down in the familiar surrounds of Bangkok airport,my forth time there,and headed once again to the Koh San road to rest for one night before overlanding to Cambodia.I had arranged to meet a few friends here but through some incident
or another the group was reduced to three,Suzanne and her freind Cath who had flown out to Thailand to travel with Suzanne for five weeks before they both flew home.We sat down and over Coffee got to know Cath,a fifty two year old close friend of Suzannes who was out to find adventure travelling for the first time.We decided a rough route to take and booked the ticket across the border to our first destination,Siem Reap.The bus ride was an eye opener passing through beautiful countryside on our way to the border crossing at Pursat.We walked across the border and after a brief check and stamp of our passports we were in Cambodia,a country that everyone has heard about but for the wrong reasons.We arrived at about ten at night and fell into the trap so many people had warned us about.The bus pulled in at a guesthouse and we were meet by a few guys wanting to show us rooms.Because of the long trip and the time most people just stay at the guesthouse and we decided instead of trekking around a city we had never been to we looked at the the rooms and suprisingly they were clean
and cheap.At six dollars US for each room it was a steal!Over the next few days we booked ourselves on the tours that were avaliable,cramming alot into the three days we stayed there.The highlight and the main attraction of Siem Reap is Angkor Wat,a gigantic array of stone temples that im sure youve seen on the telly or in books.To try and descibe these in words just does not do them justice so out of the zillion pictures I took over the few days ive selected the ones I thought you'd enjoy best.This place although brimming with tourists,me being one of them is a true testement to what civilizations many hundreds of years ago accomplised,and the scale with which they acheived this is truely inspiring.Wanting to try a new experience everyday my second night in Siem Reap saw me sat at a dining table staring three very stuffed, fried frogs squarly in the face.Stuffed with what im not exactly sure but ive got to say that although leaving me not quite full Kermit and his two brothers went down a treat!Talking of food the Cambodians have some of the best fish and pork dishes ive ever had and anyone who
comes here and doesnt eat from the street vendors is missing out.Having travelled by plane,train and bus in the last few days it was time to add a new mode of transport to the list.We took a boat from Tonle Sap lake,near Siem Reap and followed it down for six hours to a place called Battambang which during the 1920's was a French colonial town.This has to be one of the highlights of my trip so far,as we chugged up the small river leading to the town kids on both riverbanks waved,danced and shouted at us,all with grins streching from ear to ear.At one point the kids had made a makeshift flume in the mud and were sliding down it.I really wanted to have a turn but somehow I dont think the boat would have waited for me.Battambang itself is a lazy sort of town where nothing is done at any pace and time is just some numbers on your wrist that knowone follows too much.From Battambang there are a few sites that need to be seen and the best way we found was by moped,although the a copy of highway code would be useful to all Cambodians.With our moto's
hired and a guide in tow we headed off on the small mud tracks that run out of the town,along the paddy fields and up a steep incline to a place known as the killing cave,where anyone opposed to the new communist government was taken and thrown.It was a very eerie place with the remains of the victims gathered in a glass fronted case.Its hard to think about exactly what happened there but stood where more than two hundred men,women and children had died brings home alot of things!The rest of the afternoon was taken up with trying to keep my moto out of the paddy fields and on the muddy track.More than once did I skid uncontrollably only to stop a few inches from the meter drop into the brown aqua.Feeling like Barry Sheen,before his crash,we weaved our way back towards town and as dusk was falling to our last stop,a bamboo train that took us and the bikes back to the town.Now in my mind a bamboo train is something sturdy,safe and at least resembling a train in some way not two axles carried to the track by the drivers little boy,on which they laid a flat bamboo
floor.A motor was then strapped to the back and linked to the axle.As he fired up the beast and kranked it up to mach ! I began to get a little worried,the only light we had was an angle torch held by the driver that as far as I could see needed some more juice.We zoomed on into the darkness and I was just starting to relax a little when a spot of light appeared in the distance.I convinced myself the driver had done this a million times before and knew what he was doing only to glance back at him to see him frantically waving the one candlelight strenght torch about with a look of panic on his face.As the "train" had no brakes it took an age to clatter to a stop and as we did the driver went into super panic mode which sent me into slight panic mode.We all threw the two bikes off to the side off the track,removed the floor,motor and two axles with only about ten seconds to spare.A deisel loco,although having seen our light thundered past our faces as we squeezed ourselves between the track and the shrubs.I managed a nervous smile
at the driver who was now laughing with his little boy putting the train back on the track.I told the girls I wasnt worried at all but the small dark patch on my shorts told a different story,im glad it was dark!!!!!While in Battambang we booked ourselves onto a cooking course and after the previous days experience I wanted to do something that wasnt going to decapitate me.Under the instruction of Loc we visited the local market with him to buy the ingredients for the three dishes we had decided to cook,Fish Amok,a Cambodian curry dish,Beef loc lak and tom yum soup.During the morning loc showed us how to prepare,cook and present the food and although the techniques were basic the attention to detail andf way in which each ingredient was used made for some good tasting dishes.Life in Cambodia is very simple but the way people go about it and the permanent and infectious smile they do it with wants me to stay and spend as much time as I can enjoying their country that has endured so much...........
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