Ankor What?

---

Ok. It's been a while since my last post but that is because I have been doing loads of stuff and I haven't had time to update the blog.

Saigon was where I last left it, with the slightly nervous ending about sharing a room with the hotel receptionist. I am very pleased (and relieved) to inform you all that nothing untoward took place that night.

Since last updating I have travelled through the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, travelled across Cambodia and I am presently on the Thai island of Ko Tao. If you want to see some pics of my travels then click this link Din's Blog - not as good as mine I'm travelling with my friend Dinesh until I return home in less than a week.

The Mekong Delta trip was definitely worth doing because I was able to combine it with the journey into Cambodia. It was an organised tour so everything was sorted by someone else which is a nice change when you have been travelling on your own for so long. It was also a good way to meet people because everyone is going in the same direction so if you meet people that you get on with then you can travel with them for a while. For me though, nothing is ever that easy. I met some really cool people on the first day and it was good seeing the area with them. We got to do some interesting stuff, like holding a massive python (although it was so unbelievably tame the drama wasn't really that high) and I also got to hold a beehive, anyone who knows my fear of bees and wasps will understand what an achievement that is for me. But on the second day of the tour the group split into 2: one group went on the fast boat to Phnom Penh in Cambodia and one group went on the slow boat. When I booked my ticket I wasn't given the choice between boats and I was automatically placed on the slow boat. All the people who I had been getting on with were on the fast boat. Damn it! I tried to change but I couldn't so I was stuck on the slow boat with the biggest bunch of gormless, uninteresting or downright weird super geeks I have ever met in my life. There was one guy in particular who I think must be king of the geeks. He was such a loser, and I was stuck on a boat with these people for 8 hours!!! Anyway, I managed to ditch them pretty quickly once I arrived in Phnom Penh because it was here that I met up with Din.

Phnom Penh is a really nice city. Cambodia is much less focused on tourism than other Southeast Asian Countries - its borders have only been open to tourists for about 10 years - but this doesn't take anything away from it. The only bad thing for me about Cambodia was that it rained every single day. And I'm not talking nice and gentle English style rain, I'm talking military style, hurts your skin when it hits you rain. The whole centre of Phnom Penh turned into a lake. And I had to walk across it to find Din's guesthouse. Not fun, but the city is worth it - the next day we rented a tuk tuk for the day for $5 each and it took us round all of the sights of Phnom Penh. These included S-21, a really disturbing prison where Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge tortured 1000s of people, the killing fields - where they killed 1000s of people and then, in really bad taste, we went to a shooting range. I can't tell you much fun it was to fire an AK-47, my god those things are powerful. I have heard from a few people that in Cambodia you can go to one of these shooting ranges and fire a rocket launcher at a cow for about $100. This wasn't offered to us and I wouldn't have done it if it was, but when I joked about shooting one of the ducks in the pond the taxi driver said to me in a hushed tone, "you wanna shoot a duck?" He could tell from my reaction that the answer was no and he quickly started laughing to suggest it was a joke, but I'm pretty sure if I had wanted to we could have been having Duck a la Crudge for dinner.

The only other thing of note that we did in Cambodia was visit the ancient temple ruins of Ankor, including Ankor Wat. These are definitely impressive. Ankor Wat in particular was amazing to see because it is just so big. I think it is the largest religious building ever constructed. The steps leading up to the top are practically verticle and I am convinced that loads of people must fall down them. If you did you would probably die though so I imagine this fact is kept quiet. Another of the temples was equally impressive because although it was much more ruinous, it had MASSIVE tree trunks threaded through it. You can see a good picture of it on Din's Blog.

After Ankor we headed to Thailand and on to the East Coast Islands. We have had a night in Ko Samui and are now on Ko Tao where I am doing my PADI scuba diving course. It is so much fun. I feel a bit bad for Din though because its very difficult to do anything on this island if you can't go into the water and he has an injury preventing this so he is just spending most of the day sitting around while I am having the time of my life in the water. But he doesn't need to worry because I complete my course tomorrow and straight after that we are heading to Ko Pha Ngan which is party island.

So expect some stories of drunken behaviour in my next blog update which will almost certainly be my last! Damn it, I can't believe this 2 months has gone so quickly.

---