5th - 11th February 2014 - Laos to Cambodia to Koh Samui

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5^thFebruary – I checked out of my hotel in Vientiane and got a tuk tuk to the airport which was about 6km away. The tuk tuks stink so bad of fumes, it wasn’t the smell I really wanted just after I had just awoke. When I got to the airport which wasn’t exactly Gatwick, more like Bournemouth but even smaller, I couldn’t find where I had to check in as they were not displaying my flight on the screens. I asked a guy behind a Laos Airlines booth and the cheeky sod tried to sell me a ticket for their airline and insisted that the flight I was due to catch was cancelled. You have to admire these Asian people, they defo have no morals. He annoyed me a lot so I just walked away, walked around a lot and then eventually I found a person willing to help who advised that the gate number etc. wouldn’t be displayed until 9.30am, in 45 minutes time.

I checked in and went to the observation deck to watch the aeroplanes which was COOL! An Air Asia flight was being pushed back onto the taxi way. The little truck that was pushing the plane broke down and the operators couldn’t detach the prop that was attached to the front wheel of the plane. The plane at this point was ready to move forward to the runway but couldn’t. I have never seen so many people running frantically across the airfield. I bet the people on the plane who could have seen it all from the windows were like “WTF”. Anyway, I boarded my flight with Vietnam Airlines and it took 1 hour 5 mins to get to Phnom Penh. Nice plane and great food too!

I got a Mortuk, a moped with a trailer cart attached to it to my hotel. When I got to the hotel they said “sorry Mr we full but we check you into another hotel” This makes me angry as I specifically booked that hotel. They took me to another hotel, pillion on a 250cc bike which was cool but the hotel was HORRIFC! Had no aircon or fan. The window were stuck shut with selotape, no hot water but it did have cable TV and a really comfortable bed which I was all over after the last 3 nights of springs in Vientiane. The hotel cost me £5. I dropped my bags in and went for a walk to the royal palace and found a bar along the river front. I spent the rest of the day there chatting to a couple from Derby. When I was walking back to the hotel I stumbled across a street dance crew that were very amateurish but I could tell that all the kids involved had so much passion for it. Carried on walking, went to bed and I actually didn’t sleep too bad considering the thermometer in my bag was registering 37.5 degrees in my room.

The next morning, 6^th February, I got up at 6.15am to catch the speedboat north to Siam Reap. I started to walk from my hotel, turning down every tuk tuk offer which was a lot ((When you have a back pack on you suddenly resemble a chip and the tuk tuk people resemble seagulls – hundreds of them appear and all try to get you) but when I got half way I gave up and paid $2 to get to the quay. I’m so glad I did too as it was still quite far to walk. When I got onto the boat which I can only describe as an old aeroplane cabin welded to the hull of a long boat with the biggest and loudest engines on the back, I thought “this is cool”. I sat outside at the front of the boat and stayed there all the journey. There were two people sat right at the back of the boat… All I can say is they must have been deaf and covered in soot from the exhausts.. Picture says it all. I arrived in Siam Reap 6 hours later, slightly deaf and very sunburnt. I had a tuk tuk driver waiting for me with my name on it and he took me to a hotel in the centre of Siam Reap city which was perfectly situated for the night market, food market and pub street. I checked in, had 2 beers which were 37p each and went for a little sleep. When I got up I decided I would go for a mooch. I walked through the night market stalls which were bustling with people, motorbikes, tuk tuks and stalls of colourful fabrics, jewellery, scented candles and souvenirs/tat (Oh and damn persistent girls offering massage)… Relentless! As Cambodia works on the US dollar currency its not as cheap as what I have been use to so I went and bought some supplies like fruit and yogurt and nuts and water rather than paying for a fry up for breakfast and snacks throughout the day in restaurant’s the next day. I went down Pub Street and had me Chicken and vegetable stir fry with boiled rice and two beers and that cost about £4 which is still cheap but not as cheap as Thailand etc.

Friday 7^th Feb I didn’t do much really, got up and went for a mooch around in the day time, had a few beers and petty much chilled out

Saturday 8^th Feb I had a nice lay in… Well until 8am when my body clock decided to make me get up! I rented a push bike for a few hours and went to check out where the temples of Angkor Wat were. Turns out they were only about 3 miles out of town. Came back and had a little nap and considered changing my hotel as I didn’t like the staff but I bit the bullet and stayed there. I’ve definitely realised that I am Mr Independent in that I prefer to go and check things out myself rather than go on tours or recommendations of drivers but that said I think it’s because I am always conscious that they are probably trying to rip me off! I didn’t do anything that evening, went out for some munch and a few beers and went back to my hotel and watched a few movies on Fox.

Sunday 9^th Feb – Yesterday I asked my hotel to change my bed sheets and sort me out with a Tuk Tuk for 5am this morning. Neither happened… I ended up shouting down a driver at 5.15am. He had his 3 year old son with him and he was proper cute. He offered me a tour around Angkor Wat, the little circuit followed by the big circuit for $20. I was wise this time and didn’t commit to it until I got there. It was then that I realised how vast this place was and that I would defo need transport. He dropped me off at 5.35am at Angkor Wat Temple. I watched the Sunrise which was amazing, and I watched it with probably 500 other people. Spectacular! I bumped into Paul and Jackie who I had met on the slow boat from Chiang Khong to Luang Prabang a few weeks ago so we arranged to go for a beer that evening. I spent all day going from temple to temple. Tomb Raider was filmed, or part of it at Tah Phrom Temple. www.tourismcambodia.com/attractions/angkor/angkor-wat.htm The history and sheer size, detailing and architecture of these temples is incredible! As I had been at the temples since 5.35 the day serious dragged. By 1.30pm I had seen about 10 different temples and was “templed out” so I asked my driver to skip a few small ones and take me to the last big one. After that he brought me back to my hotel where I chilled out for a few hours. At 4pm I went out for some munch at “Charlies” bar, just off pub street in central Siem Reap. 4 beers later I thought jheez I gotta meet Paul and Jackie in a bit so I went back to the hotel, freshened up, downed a pint of milk and headed back out. Two other people who were on the slow boat also came along so it was great to catch up. It ended up being an early night, good job too as I had to get up at 5am to catch the 6.15am bus back down to Phnom Penh.

Monday 10^th Feb I got to the bus stop. Said “5 hours right?” to get to Phnom Penh and his reply was “7”…. I wasn’t overly happy about this as I knew what the roads were like. We stopped twice on the way. Each time it was at a roadside restaurant where all the people on the bus would get off and eat loads of rice and noddle’s so on the second stop I joined in. The road conditions were dreadful, and as I mentioned on Facebook it was like the Dakar rally, bumpy as hell and so incredibly dusty. True to the guys word the bus arrived at Phnom Penh bang on the 7^th hour! I already had an idea where I wanted to stay and I was able to find out where I was by cross referencing road signs with my guide book. It took me about 30 minutes to walk to my hotel, the Cozyna Hotel along the Mekong River water front. Managed to get two nights for £15 per night and to be fair whilst this is more than I have been spending I really wanted to stay here and have a little bit of luxury! I didn’t do much for the rest of the day, it was about 3pm by the time I had sorted everything. I walked down the quay and found a bar selling draught beer for 30p so I had a few beers in there, left and went to the shop and got a litre bottle of Smirnoff for £5. I came back to my hotel and sat on the balcony. This wasn’t a great idea though as there is a public work out area in front of the hotel and I could see people working out and me having the body dismorphia that I do I instantly felt that I shouldn’t be sat here drinking vodka and eating pringles so needless to say I had no more and came inside to watch a The Walking Dead and a movie after that.

Tuesday 11^th Feb – After yesterday’s self-guilt I got up at 6am and went for a run, ran about 4 miles and then had a work out at the open air gym thing outside the hotel. Felt good after so this is defo something I need to incorporate with my travels. At 9.30am I got my hotel tuk tuk driver to take me to the Shooting Range, the Killing Field and S21 which is a genocide museum. Shooting the guns was epic, AK47 semi-automatic… My shooting skills are pretty piss poor as I only hit the target once in the heart, the rest of the time it was around the outside of the target but at least I hit the paper target somewhere. After then I went to the Killing Fields. This area was so haunting. This is where the Khmer Rouge murderers bought citizens of Cambodia to be executed. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge invaded Cambodia and killed 3 million of the 8 million population. They killed them with Axes, Hoes, Bamboo Sticks, Hammers and whatever else they could use to execute the innocent. In this killing field there was a large tree that they use to hang a speaker from which played loud music to drain out the sound of the generators and all the screams of the people being executed. The photos say it all. It was such a sad place to be and what makes it worse is this genocide mission only happened 30-35 years ago. Cambodia has only just started to recover since they sought aid from the UN in 2007 so it makes it a lot more real as it’s so recent. (Oh one thing that really freaked me out was the mass graves where you could see pieces of bones and clothes in the ground. So horrific. After there I went to S21 which was a secondary school until the Khmer Rouge invaded. They turned it into another mass execution centre right in the centre of Phnom Penh. The photos of the cells show how small they were and how the school class rooms were converted into torture cells. People here were tortured until they confessed their sins, if any and once they did they were executed. Tens of thousands of people died here along with the millions in the killings fields. Check out S21 and The Killing fields on Wikipedia… It’s not nice but so fascinating.
After all this I needed a drink so my self-guilt went out the window and I went for a few cheeky beers and some food. After that I came back here and wrote this. Tonight I was supposed to be going on a sunset cruise for $5 but that was at 5pm and I’ve just realised its 5.20pm… Never mind.

Yesterday I left Phnom Penh and headed to the coast “YYYEEEEAAAHHHH”. I'm now at Koh Samui.

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Photos

5.30am Sunrise at Angkor Wat
Siem Reap, North west Cambodia

This is the latest (Last)
To be constructed

This little Monkey
Came down from the tree when I stopped to put some sin cream on and followed me around for a bit

This is the temple where Tomb Raider was filmed
The temples are so old that trees have taken over them and are growing out of the rocks

Mass Graves
These are mass graves where hundreds of people who were executed were buried

Skulls of some of the people
Who were executed at the killing fields between 1975 and 1979

An old Class Room converted
Into prison cells at S21. Only 7 people survived out of the hundreds of thousands executed and tortured here