Advertisement
Published: July 31st 2006
Edit Blog Post
So we arrived in Bangkok around 2am and headed to the Rambuttri Village Inn which we'd read about in the lonely planet, sounded like the nicest place so headed up there to grab a room, unfortunately the ever so friendly receptionist(not!) advised us in no uncertain terms they were full. We headed wearily down the road to find a cheapo hostel, we were only staying a couple of nights so we figured the cell, sorry room would be fine.
The next day we got up late and headed for a wander around town, unfortunately we were up too late to get into any of the sights but to be honest Bangkok is more about shopping and waiting around for us so we headed to the markets to earmark presents and buy a few bits for ourselves including having suits and dresses made!!
Later on we once again bumped into our Aussie mate Wal who was flying back home the following day and so we figured it would be rude not to go out for his final night, that and i can't ever refuse a p*ssup!! We met up with Wal and his mate James in a bar down the
road and had a few games of pool, unfortunately its winner stays on so for my final game i had to play the drunkest chinese business man i've ever seen. Between shots he was dancing around the table and on more than one occasion he tried to hit the wrong ball, confusing the cue ball with the the 8 ball for example. The saddest part of this was that his erratic behaviour was so off-putting i was losing, my saving grace was that he potted the black and white so i was saved from social humiliation. After Gilligans we met another couple, a dutch man and a Scottish lass so on their advice we all headed off to a club. Packed into two tuk tuks, we flew through Bangkok doing wheelies at every traffic light much to my amusement, and arrived in some dingy back alley.... We all climbed out reluctantly waiting for an ambush but the tuk tuk driver escorted us to the door of the "club" potentially the worst i'd ever been too (naively i hadnt realised it could get worse!!) Despite the awful venue and double priced drinks, the alcohol was obviously taking over and when the
rest of the crew decided it was home time, Wal and I carried on drinking and went onto to another, hopefully better club.... Oh how naive!!! The second club seemed to have a preference for red lightbulbs and as the only white woman i had expectations of being sold as a sex slave so we finished our drinks and promptly headed home cursing the tuk tuk drivers for dropping us off at these dives!!
Our last country to visit was Cambodia, which i'd been looking forward to seeing but at the same time knew it would be upsetting. We flew into the capital phnom penh and found a hostel with a lovely Cambodian - Kiwi couple running it. The Cambodian lady seemed to want to mother Gina and had a tendency of pulling her tops up and skirt down!!
Our first day we went to the Toul Sleng Museum in Phnom Penh. Cambodia's brutal past of the Khmer Rouge genocidal rule is exemplified at this former high school which in 1975 was turning into a detention centre, S-21, for "interrogating" Cambodian prisoners. Over 17,000 on the inmates of S-21 were tortured during the following years and sent to
the Killing fields to be executed. Only 7 of the former prisoners survived Pol Pots genocide at the S-21 facility. The museum left a lump in your throat and a sickness in your gut as you wandered around the cells, looked at paintings depicting the torture and took in the thousands of faces of the inmates, some just children. After the museum we headed to the Choeung Ek Killing fields where 129 mass graves lie in a quiet field 15 km outside Phnom Penh. 86 of the mass graves have been dug up, exhuming the bodies of 9000 men, women and children most of whom had been bludgeoned to death with rifles, bamboo stakes or in the case of children hit against trees to save precious bullets. In the centre of the killing fields is a 70 ft glass pergoda filled with the skulls of 8000 of the victims from the killing fields.
It is estimated that 3 million Cambodians died of starvation, disease and execution during the Khmer Rouge rule. Cambodia is now recovering from its harsh past and the friendliness and happy nature of the Cambodian people is incredible considering.
The following day we went to
see Phnom Penh's Royal Palace and Silver Pergoda. The numerous splendid golden temples were set in a large lavish grounds, quite different to anything else we had seen in Cambodia. Following the palace we headed, with 3 huge bags of rice to the Lighthouse family orphanage where we volunteered to help for a few hours. When i say help i mean have lots of fun, playing football, basketball and have waterfights with the kids. It was loads of fun and felt pretty rewarding although we wished we could have stayed longer and made us think about returning to Cambodia to volunteer for a longer period. A couple of the kids particularly stuck in our minds like the boy that was shouting at me to go "here lady!", "there lady", "to me lady!" as you can imagine this amused the girls who were standing aside watching me sweatily running here there and everywhere on the whim of an 8 year old!!
After Phnom Penh we headed to Siem Reap to see Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. The majority of the Wats were either of a hill or you had to climb a considerable number of narrow steps to get
up the top so you can imagine which mug was sent up them all to take photos, my thighs are hurting just thinking about it!!! In fairness it was determined when we went to see sunset over Angkor and Jem lost her flip flop on the way up, at that point it was decide she was too clumsy to do any steps and too special to be left alone for five minutes!!!
Back in Bangkok now we're just chilling out between trips to the market and the tailors waiting to come home, went for drinks last night where we got thrashed at pool by the locals, gutted!!
See you all soon FionaJemmaGina x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.098s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 13; qc: 67; dbt: 0.0584s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jo Harris
non-member comment
Wat a load of wat!
Hi girls! Ah, your last travel blog :-( Seems your time has flown by in hindsight... I'm so looking forward to seeing the 3 Musketeers come through the doors at Heathrow! Not looking forward to an earlier start than normal but it'll be worth it to see your faces :-) Cambodia sounded like the perfect end to your time away - volunteering is definitely v rewarding (I speak from experience). Anyhoo, less than 24 hours to go! Til tomorrow. Loads of love and hugs to come, Jo xx