Cars, Cash and Cycling - Cambodia

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After the full moon party we moved on from Koh Pangan to Phi Phi. We were leaving at 6am, however our hostel was having a pool party - the music was so bloody loud and didn’t stop till about 5.55am - typical… We should have just stayed out all night (no one fancied it as we felt so bad on our last boat ride when hung-over)!!!

Phi Phi was really cool… Nice and chilled out, we had a nice little bungalow… This however was situated about a mile up a bloody hill - by the time we got up there we were dripping wet with sweat, so we avoided needless trips to the room like the plague!

We had a few nights out, some good food, the girls shopped and we sunbathed! We did another boat trip from Phi Phi, this time however on a long tail boat! We couldn’t see half the islands we were meant to as the water was to rough (we’ve now decided we have no luck with boat trips and should avoid doing them)! by the time we finished this trip all our stuff was dripping wet as the wave kept splashing over the side - bloody nightmare….

We also managed to see some Thai fighting. Some Reggae bar had a ring and some young Thai lads were fighting… Pretty impressive…. Not quite so impressive was the pissed western lads that got up to fight in there after (the winner gets a free bucket). This was hilarious. They all thought they were Rocky I, II, III, IV and V put together - but after 30secs of attacking each other with the “front crawl technique’’ they were blowing out there arses… Obviously, and most embarrassing of all - all the prats that got up to fight, and thought they were all it, were, yes, you guessed it - English!!! Anyway - we had a laugh!

After Phi Phi we dropped Rebecca off at Phuket airport then grabbed an overnight bus to Bangkok… We stayed in the coolest hostel ever, it was awesome (it was called Refill if your interested)! We really quite liked Bangkok, mostly due to the shopping. We were lucky enough to be there for the weekend market, which is impressive… It supposedly has 90,000 stalls - I think we must have seen them all. The sold everything from 1950’s running spikes to pet dogs…. We brought a fair bit to, it would have been a lot more if we could stretch our backpacks (all the space we made by giving Rebecca lots of stuff to take home was filled within two days)…

In Bangkok we managed to get scammed! It was the most obvious and stupid scam ever. It basically consited of a guy pretends to really helpful, tells us the Grand Palace (what we wanted to see) wasn’t open to tourists in the morning as it was a religious holiday for Thai people and that the government, to boost tourism is providing all tuk tuk’s for 20 bhat (50p) a day, and they will take you anywhere… He suggested five place of supposed interest, and we went! As soon as we sat in the tuk tuk, we just looked at each other and said ‘this is a scam’, but we continued on the premises that the sight were pretty good we were going to see…. We saw the standing Buddha and the lucky Buddha. Then the ‘scam’ part kicked in, we were taken to a suit shop (this was supposed to be where the government gave the tuk tuk driver his gasoline). So we walked in, I told the guy I had loads of real Armani suits and walked out. Our tuk tuk driver then got the hump with us, saying we had to stay in there more than ten minutes and pretend we wanted to buy stuff for him to get his gasoline. I told him I didn’t want a suit. He then said he has to take us to the government jewel centre, and that we had to be in there at least 10mins. We got there and I showed him I was starting my stop watch - he looked pissed off! We went in and it was pretty cool, we got to see the work shop and all the guys cutting the ‘real’ diamonds and making the rings… We ended up staying in there for about 30mins… We went out and told the driver to take us to the grand palace now, we’ve done him the favor… The bastard took us to some temple place dumped us out saying this was the Grand Palace. It wasn’t. We just jumped into another tuk tuk and got there… I think we pissed him off because we were cheeky and annoyed his suit maker friends. Oh well.
The grand palace was cool, very ornate… We spent some time walking around in the boiling heat and snapping away. Photos should be up soon! We meet some other people there who had done the same scam, but they enjoyed it to (mind you they got dropped of at the grand palace and not just dumped randomly)!

From Bangkok we were on our way to Cambodia… We left at 5am, got a train to the Thai border town, a tuk tuk to the actual border (the driver then tried to take us to the ‘Cambodian Embassy’ - hmm I think not… We don’t get scammed twice in two days! After stern words demanding he took us to the boarder, he did! We got there, got through Thai immigration easily and then reached the Cambodian boarder crossing!!! After avoiding lots of people trying to sell us shit as usual we made it to their visa point! At their visa point there is a massive sign saying tourist visas $20. We get to the window and they guy wants us to pay $20 dollars plus 200 bhat. We argued and said no. He then says we have to wait three to four hours for our visa… Git…. I then had to go back and offer him $5 extra for each visa (for the express service don’t you know) - we received it within the minute - a crappy piece of paper stuck in our passport with our name written on it! on the other side, in Cambodia we stopped to get some lunch and then searched for a cab… Again lots of cabbies were trying to rip us off. We found one, shared with a couple we met in our hostel in Bangkok, and saw on the train to the boarder - cost us $10 each for a 3hr ride. Not bad!

The driver then drops you off at a tuk tuk stand in Siem Reap (they wont take you to your hotel), and we get a free tuk tuk (it was actually free - in a way) with a tout trying buy your custom as a tour guide for Angkor… Rox felt sorry for ours for some reason so we hired him for $12 for the following day! If she would have noticed he stunk of B.O. she wouldn’t have been so keen on hiring him….

Our first day at Angkor, we get into our own private tuk tuk, and Rox notices the stench. We laugh and talk about it - thinking he cant understand us… Our first drop of was at Angkor Wat - impressive. A massive (the biggest in the world) temple dedicated to Vishnu, the Hindu God of destruction. We spent a great deal of time wandering around this immense place. When we got back into our tuk tuk, our guide had changed and evidently washed as he didn’t smell anymore - wonder if he understood us laughing and talking about it…ooppss… But it made for a more comfortable ride for us as we were sitting down wind from him!

We see lots and lots of very impressive temples and really enjoyed our day! In the evening we went for a blind massage, yes we could see it - it was given by blind people. This was ok, the place was pretty grotty, but I suppose they can’t see the dirt, making it difficult to clean. The massage itself was pretty good, they certainly knew what they were doing, and it only cost us $7 each.

The following day we decided to hire a bicycle and cycle round Angkor! It cost us $2 for the bike, and a dollar of it went to charity! We’ve built up some good karma over the last two days! This was brilliant… We see like a 1% of the temples we see with the tuk tuk, but you see more of the surrounding area which is beautiful. We saw some more remote temples that are off the tourist trail which was really nice, as well as getting to spend all day in the sun….
We didn’t last too long there, about 5 hours, as we were shattered and had sore backsides (the bikes were pieces of junk) but it’s the way to see Angkor… We wish we done our first day like this! Oh well, live and learn!

Off to Phnom Penh tomorrow to see S21 and the killing fields - should be interesting! Speak soon!

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