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Published: November 28th 2009
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SO here we are, after 1 and a half days we are making our first blog entry. Surprisingly, the internet in Cambodia is pretty fast and wide spread.
The trip started on the 27th (yesterday) at Melbourne Airport where our familes met for dinner before saying goodbye. After dinner Megan's parents endured the enormous line with us, before we checked in. the goodbyes were the most eventful part of the trip to date, with Megan gushing like a waterfall at the thought of leaving her parents for 12 weeks (weak). after finally prying megan's dehydrated body through the final gate, Lewis was 'randomly' tested for explosives. He is just so suss.
As expected, Lewis forgot something very important within the first 5 minutes of going through customs - his contact lens case. Fine, unless you're on an 8-hour flight overnight! (You can't sleep with contacts in). We searched high and low through duty free to no avail, and used our super-smart traveller skills (already developed after 30 mins) to put them in a water bottle.
The flight to KL followed...and what else can we say? YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR with AirAsia. Cramped, tiny seats that don't recline,
and a FREEZING cabin. Possibly the worst night of sleep either of us had ever had, and we weren't allowed to check into our hotel at the airport until 2pm! (We arrived at 7am KL time).
So we braved through it, checked our luggage into the hotel and got a bus to KL Sentral (the main train station) for $3 each way. The 1.5 hour drive seemed to take hours and hours, and Lewis slept through almost the whole thing. The roads in Malaysia appear to go around in circles!
We got off the bus at KL, and realised that we had no idea where we were, what we wanted to see, or even what there WAS to see. Not the best position for two sleep-deprived new travellers to be in. So we found ourselves on a train to the nearest "Megamall", where we wandered around in the airconditioning and picked up a few things that we needed.
Then came our next big obstacle: lunch. Or was it breakfast?? some kind of food.
We wandered around a food court for at least 15 mins trying to decide what food was least likely to give us food poisoning (fear
instilled in us by every single person we've talked to about the trip for the last 4 months).
We thought Western food would be a weak choice, so we chose Japanese, because "we're used to that at home". Good reasoning.
After lunch (breakfast), we shopped a bit more, got on a few more trains, and ended up at the Petronas Twin Towers, the only landmark in KL that Megan could remember without looking at a guidebook!
The towers were closed for a public holiday, so we got some photos outside and looked up for a bit, and that was that.
By this point we were beyond exhausted, and figured it must be nearly 4pm and time for dinner. An (unfriendly) policeman told us that no, it was in fact 12pm, which meant we still had 2 hours until we could even check in!!
We wandered around the shopping centre that was under the Petronas Towers for a bit more, then maneuvered our way back to KL Sentral, and the bus to the LCCT Airport.
We then checked into the SMALLEST hotel room ever known to man...which consisted of - a bed. There wasn't even any room for our
backpacks to sit next to the bed, the place was so tiny. But it had aircon, and that's all we cared about. We showered and napped, then went for dinner at the terminal where we bought an alarm clock and exchanged some $$, and back to the room for an early night before our even earlier start the next day.
After a 4am start, we checked into and boarded our flight to Siem Reap (Cambodia) with no problems (minus a particularly lax security officer who was facing the other way talking when we came through, and we had to remind him to xray our bags).
The 2-hour flight was much more bearable than our flight from Melbourne. Siem Reap airport is a little building in a paddock, filled with tough looking customs men! The visa application process seemed almost like an excuse to create jobs - there was a panel of about 12 men in uniforms who each checked it over, passing the visa down the line until the last one calls out your name. It was like being in front of the Supreme Court. Our visas were approved (after a mishap with a ripped $US20 note - Thanks
Trev!), and we got through the customs check alright (handing a man a piece of paper with "I have nothing to declare" ticked on it). Our pickup from the hotel was forgotten, and we caught a taxi to the guesthouse with another couple from Holland (who are on the last leg of their own 3 month trip around South-East Asia). We all checked in, and we had lunch (breakfast) at the guesthouse. Lewis decided that since it was 2pm in Melbourne, that it was ok to have a beer at 10 in the morning.
We st around chatting for awhile, then decided to go to the Old Market, which is in the centre of town. We had our first "tuk-tuk" experience then - essentially a motorbike with a trailer with seats on the back of it. Fun times.
The market was very interesting, everyone was selling one or more of: souvenir t-shirts, silk scarves, bags, or watches. Megan bought a watch (as we have had no idea what the time is since we left) and a dress, Lewis a few singlets.
We then had a "fish massage" - where you stick your feet in a pool of fish who eat
away at your dead skin cells for 20 mins. We were propositioned to buy a franchise of his "fish-massage" concept to take to Australia, but decided that business deals should be saved for later than Day 2 of the trip.
We're now back at the guesthouse waiting around for the taxi driver who drove us from the airport to take us to see the sunset at Angkor Wat (apparently free after 4:30).
Tomorrow will be the start of some serious temple-viewing, which we'll be able to write about in a few days.
xxx
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wendy lowe
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Love your blog
Love your blog and the photos. You haven't missed anything in Aussie land. I guess you can read any of our papers on the internet if you are curious about news. I'm waiting up to pick up Nicole from the edgie it is Dan's 20th birthday. Looking forward to hearing about the Temples. Stay safe. Love you Mum