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Published: January 29th 2011
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Floating marketSo here we are, sitting in the bohemian shaded patio area of the Tanei Guest House in Siem Reap, Cambodia - with really sore bottoms! - but more about that later.......... we have done so much since our last blog entry, it almost feels that we are in Narnia, and that a week in your land is a year in ours! - Anyway, we will attempt to summarise what we have been up to and try and keep it short and sweet.
After the last blog entry we got a mini bus up to an area about 200km west of Bangkok called Kanchanburi, where we visited one of the countries largest floating markets, it was a great experience to be personally taken on a long boat through a maze of dirty water ways and canals, and to barter with the local people for a bunch of bananas and a coconut, it was also wonderful to see how the rural Thai people live, what they eat and how they make money.
We then went on to the town of Kanchanburi - made famous in WWII by the allied bombing of the Bridge over the River Kwai. We spent a good
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Bridge over the River Kwai hour at the museum learning about the awful things that happened to the POW's at that time. That evening we stayed literally ON the River Kwai on a group of floating bamboo platforms, with a makeshift bar, restaurant and about five huts, run by a lovely family... our room rocked every time a boat passed on the river - this is the kind of backpacking accomodation we had in mind when we were back in England -cheap, young people and basic. As you can imagine the views from outside the hut were outstanding. This was our first experience with small creatures of nature... Marieke forgot to close her rucksack at night and in the morning to her surprise, found a nice selection of mice poo and ants among her clothes.
LESSON no.1 LEARNT - zip up your bag at all times, unless you want a small zoo in your back pack, pants and shoes!
The next morning (20/01/11) we woke early and the owner of the 'hotel' took a group of us up the river on a bamboo raft. The river was surrounded on both sides by jungle, and some of us (Barrie) decided to jump off the
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Our floating house near Kanchanaburi! raft into the shallow mirky river water - luckily he had his Typhoid jab as we later discovered that all toilet waste from the river rafts was deposited into the river! Barrie hasn't yet (touch wood) gotten ill from his little spontaneous river swim, but only time will tell.. Later that day, Marieke's "Jim'll Fix It Letter" was finally answered, (some 20 years later) and we rode an elephant! - the first time for both of us. They are such graceful creatures, their skin like leather.
One bit of advice that Marieke's brother Rod had given us, was to not book accommodation through a tourist information board or travel agents as you cold get ripped off. Well.... we did book through them, to be safe, and bloody regreted it! We returned to Bangkok that evening, after thoroughly enjoying ourselves out in a more rural area of Thailand, with the knowledge that we had a room booked at a hotel, which looked pretty decent in the brochure. (Cue Ann Robinson on Watch Dog). We were so shocked when we arrived late in the evening, knackered from our journey from rural Thailand, as the room was NOTHING like the pictures... it
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Overlooking the river from our floating river house was a flea infested, mosquito ridden, dirty HOLE of a hotel that we paid good money for! Marieke, inheriting her "I'm not going to settle for this, give me a refund" prowess from her mum, of course complained to the girl on the front desk. She told us quite honestly that had we booked directly with the hotel, it would have been over three times less money than what we had actually paid through the tourist information guy. Should have known that they would take twice the amount of money as commission!
LESSON no.2 LEARNT - NEVER BOOK A ROOM THROUGH A TOURIST INFORMATION! Just turn up to the guest house and ask for a room!
I guess we will have to go through these bad experiences to learn from them, despite friends and family warning us of it in the first place. So to cut a long story short - we walked a few km to the tourist info guy, and demanded our money back - but actually settled on an upgrade to a 4 star hotel with 'the works' (RESULT!) - we hit the Ko San Road, and did it large(ish) - what a road, so
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Barrie taking a courageous dive into the shallow river... he scuffed his toes on the bottom! Out came the savlon. full of energy, crazy people and drink.
The next morning, with a sore head (Barrie) - we embarked on a six hour coach journey down to Koh Chang - a Thai Island to the SE of Bangkok. This was quite a contrast to the hectic lifestyle we had experienced up in Bangkok. We took a ferry over to the island, which looked something like the island in 'Lost' - looming in the distance through the haze. For the next three days we relaxed - something we'd promised ourselves that we would do a long time ago. We settled on a basic beach hut located around 10m from the shoreline. The location was perfect, azure sea, palm trees and white sands - it was heaven! - we snorkled and swam with some amazing fish amongst coral reefs, we ate great Thai food for under £2 for a meal and drunk our fair share of local Chang Beer (6.5% - we later found out - damn!)
LESSON no.3 LEARNT - check the alcoholic percentage of beer BEFORE you drink copious amounts of it.
Alas, it was time to leave, and we looked back at the island from the ferry
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Bamboo river rafting. with sadness as we were going to miss the place - We had slighly better tans, Barrie's beard now in full flow and we had some great memories to cherish. So now we were about to have the worst day of our journey so far................
We took a mini bus to the Cambodian Border, looking out from the van seeing the rural side to Thailand, with farmers in triangular hats ploughing fields, children playing in muddy pools of water, and whole families under a wooden shelter looking out at us. Once we got to the border, the confusion started! Lets just say it was mayhem, we were taken from one place to another, split from our original group, asked to fill out many forms in order to gain our Visa. We are pretty sure that in all of the confusion we were asked to pay too much for our Visa, but speaking to other travellers they said they were happy to pay more so that the hassle of dealing with the Cambodian border guards (notoriously corrupt) was taken away. The trouble is we didn't even have a choice and we didn't really know what was happening, we had geared
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Apparently Thom Kumm, our elephant, was the fattest in the herd. Jim'll certainly fixed it for Me! ourselves up to go through the border - had our dollars ready and we were ready for the experience, which never happened. We were slowly getting the feeling that every local was out to screw over the tourist! Anyway enough of this, it was a crappy day to say the least..........oh did we say it was also the hottest day ever, it was horrible! Once in Cambodia we took a bus towards Siem Reap, the main town in the north of Cambodia, very close to Angkor Wat.
LESSON no.4 LEARNT - Don't cross the Thailand/Cambodian border without a strong will and expect to be ripped off! Take the 'Lonely Planet's' advice!
For the first time, we got off the bus in a town where we hadn't already booked accomodation. We told the tuk-tuk driver to drop us off in the centre and we just went from guest house to guest house until we found one that suited us. It was quite nice to actually pay the correct amount for accommodation and not a portion to the tour company (we won't do that again). Our chosen guest house was great - cleaner than our hut in Ko Chang but
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Barrie overlooking the valley near Hell Fire Pass, where 100,000 POW's died at the hands of the Japanese in WWII building the railway. A time for reflection. not as well located, this place had a swimming pool, hot water and bar / restaurant and free wi-fi - quite a luxury, especially as we stayed in the VIP room (for only $25) on the first night, we can't do that too many more times though, we'd be back in England in 2 months with no money!
Our taste buds got a bit of a treat in Siem Reap - that evening, we decided to treat ourselves and pay $8 between us to have a Cambodian BBQ - which consisted of beef, snake, crocodile, shrimp and finishing off with meaty giant frogs legs! We cooked the meats, noodles and veg on our own little gas powered BBQ - Marieke was so looking forward to trying Python and Crocodile, but snake is infact rather chewy. The croc however was delicious... as uncle Anthony Shaffner would say 'It's VERY tasty!'
Siem Reap was a charming town with rural qualities, shady tree lined boulevards and a gentle river. It also has a good centre, with plenty of bars and restaurants, as well as lively central market, with all market sellers veering for your attention in the hope to sell something
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View from the beach - 10m from our beach hut on Koh Chang for a buck or two. Yesterday (28/01/11), we hired a couple of bicycles and rode the 7km to the Temples of Angkor (Angkor Wat being the most famous). These temples are a source of profound pride to the people of Cambodia, with their extravagant beauty and grandeur. The temples were dotted around a huge expanse of jungle and forest and as we cycled around we literally just came across one after another - they were like something from an Indiana Jones set, so remarkable, a very organic form of architecture much like Gaudis' Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Anyway, we reckon we probably rode nearly 40km on the bikes yesterday, and at one point we thought Marieke wasn't going to make it back and we'd have to put her bike on the top of a tuk-tuk! - but we did it and we are so glad we explored Angkor Wat by bike - even though we are both SO 'saddle sore' today.
LESSON no.5 LEARNT - carry savlon at all times for bites, cuts and saddle sore bottoms.
Right, that's all folks, we are leaving Siem Reap tomorrow and taking a night bus down to Sihanoukville on the south
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Our beach hut on Koh Chang - no premium for being only 10 meters from the sea! Marieke was on Tsunami watch... coast of Cambodia for more 'fun in the sun'
Hope you are all well? Thanks for reading!
Love Barrie and Marieke x
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Antony
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Sounds like the pair of you are having a great time! Make sure you have a fish 'amok' curry in Cambodia - it's good stuff.