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Published: March 10th 2007
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So we're in our final country of S.E.Asia... Cambodia (ahem, before going back to Thailand anyway). But we're getting ahead of ourselves now as Saigon came first. After getting (yet another) bus there, we found a fairly cheap room..the downside being that it was up 50 flights of stairs as well as being on top of a silk clothes shop which we had to walk through everytime we wanted to access our rooms. It seems the powers that be are wanting us to spend all our money...pure evil. So in our full day in Saigon we went to the war remnants museum which is fairly harrowing - plenty of very graphic photos and awful accounts of the Vietnam war. We also went to the Reunification Palace. In case anyone who reads this goes to Saigon, don't bother going. Put simply, it's quite rubbish. It's known for the iconic photograph of a tank knocking down the front gates and which has come to symbolise the end of the war. All in all, however, we really liked Saigon - stark contrasts between the neatly trimmed gardens and, oddly, the roundabouts, and some areas of town which seem somewhat less well tended.
The
following morning we hopped on a bus (shock!) to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We got conned out of an extra $4 for our visa by the cheeky bus people (damnit!) but other than that it was all ok. We got there at about 12.30pm and immediately set out to explore the town. We went to the Royal Palace which we enjoyed far more than the one in Bangkok - probably due to there being significantly less tourists. We also had the pleasure of hiring a lovely pair of nappy trousers (Laura) and a 90s t-shirt (Heloise) because we were apparently not covered up enough. We have immortalised these items in a series of lovely photos. It seems the worse we look, the happier we are to photograph each other over and over in increasingly terrible poses! We then changed the topic completely by going to the genocide museum. This is set in the S-21 prison which is where the Khmer Rouge tortured thousands of their victims. It was terrible but very enlightening - how on earth to put the feeling into words?! We don't know!! We then collapsed onto our beds (which by the way were located in an ABSOLUTE HOLE
of a guesthouse!) and slept extremely well until we had to get up at ridiculous o'çlock again for yet another bus!
So we arrive at our current location - Siem Riep. We had the slight shock when we got here to discover that there is pretty much nothing to visit in the town (oops - that'll be us not reading our guide book in advance then!). Yesterday we woke up at 4.30 (anyone who dares call this a holiday should be very, very careful!) to go to Angkor to watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat. It was really really good to watch our surroundings be slowly revealed to us, having initially got there when it was pitch black. The day was so so exhausting as we went to temple after temple under the crazy heat of the sun (think may have actually seen a mirage of a lake...), but it was very worth it. Each and every temple is amazing for different reasons. Some are really well kept and others have been reduced to rubble; some are mid jungle, engulfed by trees and others are in desert-like settings. The architecture is splendid (!) and everything is so Indiana
Jones-like that we spent some time in one of the deserted temples acting as though we were being followed by baddies (yes, yes, we are ashamed!). In fact, we loved it so much that we actually went back for another dose today! This time we saw the further out, less famous temples and ended with the sunset over a temple on the top of a hill. Very lovely but hazardous as the stairs to all these temples are basically a sheer drop - in the dark and amongst the frantic japanese tourists it was a slight mission!
The day was also made more interesting by a slightly crazed tuk-tuk driver who displayed a stciker which read, 'Drive carefully, be careful of life', but who unfortuantely did not practice what he preached, and drove the thing like a go-kart. Well happily, we are here in one piece (each), but it made the day a bit more like Chessington World of Adventures, being thrown around and bumped up and down half the fairly falling-apart roads of Cambodia.
And so to tomorrow... we are backtracking in a sense, heading back to Thailand - basically, to the beach, to Koh-Chang, an island
not too far south. We will report back. Over.
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Jan
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Total Tropical Soton!
Tis almost hot today in Southampton am actually wearing shorts and T-shirt! If you squint U might even think your in Thailand if you turn the lamposts into palm trees! Has been beautiful weather since Saturday which was perfect for the SUCV residential in Dorset! Was lots of fun and exhausting. Have AGM 2night so will no longer be treasurer as of handover on Thurs :+( Hope your both enjoying the beech and the beautiful water, done any snorkelling? Jan x