The long way around to Cambodia...worth the detour though

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If your going to see both Vietnam and Cambodia, the smart thing to do is see them one after the other seeing as their neighbours and all that. As we've discovered we like to do things the hard way so we decided on a wee detour down to Indonesia in between, with stop offs in Singapore on the way down and Malaysia on the way back...only ??? kilometres out of the way!!! Completely worth it though as we had an incredible time with a few funny stories to go with it as always. The journey from Vietnam to Bali was a painful one not only did we have a foolishly long stop over in Singapore which included a lovely 9 hours in the airport but for the majority of that time while we waited Amy and Emma had already landed and were ready and waiting to get our wee holiday started-so close but yet so far. Seeing both Lucy and Shaun in the last few months had made both Tom and I really miss everyone at home, so getting to catch up with home plus the added bonus of real Cadburys was too much to wait for. In true Kirkman style though our reunion was brilliant, we thought we were meeting them at the hotel Amy of course had to come to the airport so we arrived tired and dazed into Denpensar airport to a chorus of 'top of the morning to ya' in Amy's best (which isn't so great) Irish accent, much to our delight and the amusement of about 30 Indonesian taxi guys who weren't quite sure what was going on! Excitement and welcome tears over and done with we headed back to the hotel for a wee catch up some yummy treats from home and a quick retreat to bed after what had been a long trip for everyone. Amy and Emma had spent a night sleeping or at least trying to outside the airport in Java the night before so everyone was a little bleary eyed.
Our first proper day in Bali included a good stint at the beach and what was to be a battle of wills between us and the millions of sellers/massures on Legian beach, note to self-once they have sat down beside you they are near impossible to get rid of. We had a great day catching up on all the news from home and sharing some of our many stories with the girls. Dinner that night gave Tom a taste of what was to become the norm for him over the next two weeks with every other man we passed in the street commenting on Tom and his 3 girls, 'which ones yours??' 'How many girls you need boss?' 'Can you share??' 'How did he manage that, lucky git' was defiantly my favorite! Day 2 included what we had hoped was going to be a move to a really nice hotel-really nice it was not and if we didn't laugh we would have cried at some of the have's and have not's at our apparent 3 star hotel,toilet doesn't flush, not enough towels, no sheets, 1,000 per minute to use the phone but after only 6 mins the lady wanted 20,000?!? Along with hilarious we have no Indonesian and English isn't going great conversations- wifi-finish, toilet roll-finish and many more I'm sure. The day did have its up side though as Amy and Emma quickly proved that we were going to get along as a four just fine with food being the main event...first main stop-Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. Copious amounts of food ordered we were advised by our waitress to cut down the order to which there was a unanimous reply of 'nah I reckon we'll be OK'. Tom was in heaven, 3 girls all willing to order silly amounts of food and in Emma he even found a fellow beer drinker (stops the cheap large bottles going warm apparently!!!).
Our first activity of the trip came in the form of a pretty full day tour of the island, we managed it in style with our own driver in a huge jeep which made for a comfy day which was needed with all the driving we did. We managed to see some really beautiful stuff, gorgeous countryside along the way, Git Git waterfall, an amazing lake shadowed by a huge volcano, Indonesian buffet lunch, and ended the day with an incredible show of Kecak dance and fire show, the whole day was brilliant but nothing topped our first stop at Ubud's monkey forest. Not quite sure what to expect (Tom had pictured tame monkeys all very polite-he was soon to be reeducated!) we headed into the monkey sanctuary. It didn't take long at all for terror to set in. Tom thought it would be a good idea to buy a bunch of banana's (I'm still not convinced that wasn't to terrorise me with in the first place) but it was a purchase he was soon to regret. The banana seller was armed with a sling shot which should really have been our first clue, but as Tom started to feed 1 or 2 greedy wee monkeys, one of them decided that the 3 he'd already been given wasn't enough and he couldn't possibly wait his turn for another so the best option was to jump on Tom's back...the scariest/funniest 10 seconds of the trip by far. A mixture of giggles and shrieks from us all (all the while I was snapping away with the camera-sorry Tom) as Tom and this monkey battled over banana's, for a while Tom didn't wanna hand them over but quickly realised he wasn't getting rid of this monkey any other way-priceless. As Tom recovered the smug little git of a monkey sat munching his way through the whole bunch in record time-defiantly not his first rodeo. The rest of our time in the sanctuary was filled with a mixture of interest and dread as we got up close and personal with the wee things, I def wasn't their biggest fan but Amy and Emma both proved their braveness when it came to baby ones at least.
Leaving Kuta we headed to the east coast to Padangbai and finally found the Bali we had all expected, laid back, beautiful beaches, gorgeous hotel, great food, welcoming locals and less hustle and bustle. Padangbai gave us our first night out, Emma and Amy a new found dislike for tequila sunrises, made me the gloating winner of a balancing bottles game and ended in taking Barry the flamingo from our room for a late night photo shoot-very random but great fun. After Padangbai we took to the sea for a very bumpy journey to the long awaited Gili Islands, a place Tom and I were told about in our first week in Mexico and had been looking forward to seeing ever since-they did not disappoint. Our first stop was Gili Trawangen, the largest of the 3 islands-amazing. None of the islands have any motorised vehicles with the usual mode of transport being the 'clip clop' there is only 3 atm's on Trawangen which service all 3 islands, a lot of the hostels and hotels don't even have fresh water with salt water showers being the norm-although we didn't go quite so rustic and opted for a fresh water shower we had found our own little section of paradise, crystal clear waters and white sands, amazingly friendly locals and a pace of life which would be far to easy to get sucked into-go slow and enjoy being a must. The plan was to stay on the island for about 3 days then head to Gili Air for a night and onto Lombok, although once island bliss took hold all plans went out the window and we ended up staying 5 days on Trawangen and 3 on Air leaving no time to head to Lombok-a sacrifice well made though we had such a great time. Amy managed to annoy us slightly by pretty much trumping our 10 month tans in a matter of days but we'll forgive her that for all the other Kirkman gems she gave us over the 2 weeks 'I can imagine penguins being really ignorant' being one of my all time favourite Kirkamanism's-love you Amy.
Other Trawangen highlights were incredible snorkel spots only 10 metres from the shoreline, loads of fresh fish for silly prices, naps on the beach, beers in the turquoise sea, beach side cinema, seaside dining...way too much of it, 7 starters between 4 people plus mains was a little too far for one night me thinks! We defiantly didn't go without eating well was high on everyone's agenda with lots of great places to choose from and stray mangy cats being the only real annoyance of the whole time spent here. Passing the days on the beach with lots of chats and giggles wrapped up with a nice wee nap before the evenings shenanigans was a perfect way to spend a lazy week.
Our time on Gili Air gave us much of the same with a few added 'local touches'. Our accommodation here being a lot more basic beach side bungalows with thatched roofs and countless guests such as geckos, cockroaches and the round the clock chorus of a gazillion cockrels and squealing pigs-life on Gili Air is a lot less touristy and beach paradise rolls together with normal island life which makes for a noisy nights sleep and very early wake up calls, which wasn't helped by an all night religious ceremony behind our hostel which consisted of loud speaker chanting and prayers till the early hours-a few bleary eyed not so happy campers appeared the next morning. Good job it didn't effect our plans for being beach bums all day too much. Gili Air did give us a few angry sky afternoons with pretty impressive storms which gave us some good card playing time....I say good but really I'm still not fully recovered from the trauma. An afternoon of card games carried on late into the evening as game after game everyone else had their turn at winning and hour after hour I lost game after game after game, got close to a win a few times and Tom swooped in with a cheeky win-I was not happy, there may have been tears and a group decision was made that we would play till I won at least one game-Morrell competitiveness was getting a real bashing, much to the amusement of Tom and Amy, Emma not knowing me so well may have been a little scared but my persistence paid off and a good 4 hours in, 25-30 games later I finally won a hand and swiftly went to bed keeping the winners title for the night...I need help I know!
Before the girls left we managed some more sun time, a wee bit of shopping in Bali and of course an uber huge meal as the perfect send off! Goodbyes of course included more tears but thankfully this time it won't be another 10 months till we get to catch up again, such a fantastic few weeks and Tom and I again can't thank the girls and Lucy enough for coming all the way out here to visit we feel so lucky to have had such a great time with you all half way across the world. Emma and Amy's departure brought Tom and I back down to earth with a bump as our last night in Bali proved to be one of our worst hostel experiences the whole trip so far, creepy crawlies in our beds and the most rancid bath/shower you've ever seen in your life, needs must as an uber cheap option before we headed off but a good nights sleep was not had with constant panic about wee grubbies getting into my sleeping bag-not great at all.
Leaving Indonesia and getting to Cambodia wasn't the most straight forward part of our trip as we decided to save a few pennies by sleeping at the airport. As we arrived in Kuala Lumpar's huge main terminal the plan was to head into the city for a few hours see some sights and come back to the airport and wait for our early morning flight to Phnom Penh. Things didn't turn out so simply though as on arrival we realised that we weren't in the right airport for our flight the next day and by the time we had manouvered our way out of KLIA and found out how to get to the next airport to try and leave our bags somewhere, time and our evening was fast disappearing so our grand plan to get to see Kuala Lumpar failed and a long evening's wait was ahead of us-made a little easier to bare with a box of Dunkin Donunts!!! A long night of restless sleep in a crowded terminal and we were ready to board our flight to country number 20-Cambodia.
Arriving in Phnom Penh had a mixture of excitement and dread as we were excited to get to a new country and see what Cambodia had to offer but some anxiety knowing that our first few days would be spent visiting some of the most important sites of remembrance for more than 1.7 million people who lost their lives under the Khmer Rouge regime 1975-1979. Tom and I had both read 'Survival of the Killing Fields' early on in our trip and I found it difficult to put those things out of my mind even as we first arrived. Cambodia's average age is only 22 and driving through Phnom Penh on our way from the airport the huge absence of an elderly generation was obvious, the memories of all that went on still so fresh in the hearts and minds of everyone here, almost no family untouched by the horrendous events of those years. We visited the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng Museum a high school taken over by Pol Pots forces who 'transformed the classrooms in torture chambers and renamed the facility Security Prison 21 (S21)'. The whole day was really hard to get through with the images and information shown full of the most brutal and almost unbelievable stories and eyewitness accounts, the memorial in the center of the Killing Fields making it all to obvious the vast numbers of people who lost their lives with over 8,000 skulls found in mass graves here are now on show. It's one of those things that I feel was important to see to help us understand more about the country we are in and the people we are meeting but it is not somewhere I would ever want to see again with the unbearable truth being too much to comprehend knowing that this all happened within our parents lifetime-how was it allowed to happen for so long. Part of our trip that won't leave my thoughts in a hurry.
Cambodia has given us a lot of really great things to remember though as well with our arrival in Siem Reap giving us a really pleasant surprise. Apart from arriving to 40 degree heat we had not anticipated we were expecting just another big city with a mandatory trip to Ankor Wat and its surrounding temples but we arrived to a lovely wee place with a really good atmosphere and great character. We had a really great few days there and although temple spotting is not going to be one of our new past times as we defiantly did not do it justice, squeezing what some people cover in a week into a 4 hour trip but it was great to see Ankor Wat (although a little disappointed with the scaffolding) and one or two of the other main sites, including Lara Croft's Tomb Raider hang out at Ta Prohm.
We are now enjoying some more (greedy I know) beach time in the south in a wee place called Sihanoukville with amazing prices for fresh seafood and yet another chilled out atmosphere which has become the norm for us. Our journey down here was not the best one with what we were told would be an 8 hour air coned bus trip turning into 13 hours of sweat box buses, an aspect of the trip that we are glad will be soon coming to an end, convenience is now defiantly trumping experience on the traveling stakes and long crazy journeys are not something that will be missed, to start with anyway I may change my mind when I'm sat in front of a computer screen come Monday morning some time after we return. Thoughts of home are defiantly more frequent as we await the safe arrival of Tom's nephew and count down till our happy reunions but still loads more time for memories, photographs and ridiculous experiences which like Amy reminded us 'will keep us in dinner party chat for years to come!'

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Photos

Tom, Amy, Emma and I
At the Elephant cave temple-how do you like Tom's skirt?

The terror moment first hand
Concerned girlfriend keeps taking photos!

The crazy fire man
Just before he started eating it...not to be attempted at home

Tom and the crazy fire guy
Just before Tom thought it would be a good idea to try his hand at fire walking-didn't go so well for him

Breakfast with a few
Gili Trawangen

Tom and his ladies
Final night photo shoot

Kuala Lumpar pulls out all the stops
Settling in for a night on the floor

The worlds most rancid bathtube
The worst part is we had to stand in it for showers, of course shoes were worn at all times

The killing fields
Just one of the really hard to cope with images in Phnom Penh

The famous Angor Wat
Shame about all the scaffolding