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Published: August 3rd 2015
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us celebrating garys birthdayTrying to get myself in gear and keep my blog up to date more often (though, apart from my mum i am not sure anyone actually reads it!). In SA i had the luxury of being able to transfer pics onto my tablet and also type it myself but with hindsight i probably blogged too much, and sometimes it felt like a chore, recently ive done too little but i am missing out on lots of things because it takes me 1 hour just to write an overview of a month.. so maybe i will try to do a fortnightly one which is the best of both worlds..
James was due to leave on the 8th, and our visa ran out on the 7th. We would have had to leave the island on my birthday to get back to bangkok in order to make it to cambodia in time and we also felt it wasnt very fair to leave him on his own for 2 days, so we decided to overstay our visa (!). I had looked up stuff online and it said you had a 24 hour grace period and u got charged on day 2. I should have
realised this seemed like a stupid logic, why bother having a limit if you get an extra day on top of it? anyway we decided that it would be ok, and if not, we would just need to pay the 500baht fine (10 uk pounds i think - pretty steep for a day). We booked our bus direct from bangkok to Siem Reap, which was a little more expensive but a lot simpler than getting a bus to the border and then taxi to town, then another bus and it was also notorious for scams. The bus drives you to the border, you clear Thai immigration, then get your cambodian visa filled out and processed and the bus is waiting for you in cambodia. simples!
We queue up to leave thailand and as we look at our passports we realised that Gary's had a different date from mine, we arrived to bangkok just after midnight from manila, mine was stamped the 6th and garys the 5th. We then started to panic as between us we only had 1000 baht incase we had to pay the fine. I went first and hoped that because i was just a day over
they wouldnt care, but one look at my passport and i was ordered to join another Q for visa overstays. Normally this would be easy enough as you just pay the fine but because of the stamp issue and not having any money we were in a bit of a pickle. We explained the situation and the lady seemed to grasp it fine, but said that we had to get approval from her manager. I luckily had my flight from the phillipines showing the arrival into bangkok as 2350 with both our names on it but we were told to sit and wait for what felt like an eternity. The woman was very stern and looking back i wonder if she thought we would cave in and just pay the whole fine. We were getting increasingly worried as we knew the bus wasnt going to wait all day for us and everyone else had got through. We were literally stuck in limbo. Eventually she altered Garys entry date and we paid 1000 fine and literally had to bomb it through to cambodian immigration where we had to fill out application, get it processed, stamped etc. All's well that ends well
i guess, the bus was still there though we were the last ones on, and on we went to cambodia feeling like the weight had been lifted off our shoulders!
We arrived to siem reap to our $6 guesthouse and were delighted to experience the cheapness of cambodia in comparison to thailand. whoever says thailand is cheap is lying, by the way (at least southern tourist thailand). We spent a few days in siem reap, we done one day doing the tours of angor wat (ancient wonder of the world ibeleive?) It was absolutely breathtaking and crazy how old it is. Got to see the set of tomb raider too though i have to be honest ive never even seen the film but it was weird thinking Jolie had stood where I had! During this part of the trip it was also Garys birthday, it was more low key than mine but thats what he wanted. We spent the day at markets, eating, drinking and relaxing. I treated him to a massage and a couple of new vest tops.
After siem reap it was onto Phnom penh, the capital. I dont know what I was expecting, but with
it being the capital, probably something better than we got. First impressions were not good. it was really run down, poor, loads of rubbish, child beggers, etc. Our room was awful as well, the fan barely blew any air and it was over 34 degrees. We wanted out! we arrived at 6pm one day, and left 9am 2 days after. We visited the killing fields and the genocide museum in one day, and that was our lot, we wanted out. It seems sad to say that the highlight of a city is something so gruesome but unfortunately it is true. I will b e honest i knew about pol pot and that cambodia had a troubled past but i was really shocked at quite how bad. An extreme dictator, he basically exterminated anyone he thought may challenge the khmer rouge regime. I think the total of murders exceeded 3 million and included women and children. They were locked up in jails and later taken to the killing fields, of which the one we visited was one of many. It was a sombre day and i felt very emotional at times. From the pictures you will get a small idea of
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us in our tuk tuk at the end of the day what it was like.
Keen to leave phnom penh off we went in the search of some sun in the popular tourist destination of Sihanoukville. We didnt get any! We arrived thoroughly depressed to days of rain and what seemed like a pretty seedy place. Child molestation is a major problem in cambodia due to the poverty and sihanoukville has an abnormally high amount of paedos, you saw lots of creepy older western men. combined with signs to report child abuse, you knew something wasnt quite right. We decided to leave and go to Koh rong, an island 40 mins off the coast as we had heard good things. The weather was marginally better there, but not much, and it was very undeveloped (good thing in some ways, but not for home comforts). When i say undeveloped i mean that AC doesnt exist, raw sewage, sandbacks for pavements, mouldy rooms/rooms with no roofs/rats, etc. The beach was really nice but was covered in sandflies so you needed coconut oil to stand any chance. I think we got 1 beach day and otherwise it was also miserable. Again, we were pretty fed up. Back to sihanoukville to sort out our
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rules of the prison vietnam visa and get the hell out of here!
However... we got back to sihanoukville to find glorious weather and suddenly the place felt totally different. I think we stayed another 4 nights! We hired mopeds and visited beautiful beaches, i spent 2 days using a hotels pool, 30 degrees not a cloud in the sky, our mood had picked up considerably. Just shows you what a difference the weather can make. With lots to see in vietnam and a start date of the 27th july we had to get a shift on as there was more we wanted to see in cambodia.
On we went to kampot, where we spent 2 nights. Kampot is a beautfil riverside town which felt like authentic cambodia. So peaceful, pretty, and relaxed. We hired a scooter and went up to Bokor national park. The views were spectacular up in the hillside. There we saw temples, a casino, old abandoned buildings but really it was the journey up the mountains which made it. After getting back to kampot for lunch we headed to Kep, 45 minutes away down the coast. We visisted a crab market and the beach which was stunning. Again
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some of the many faces that were executed the drive there was stunning with completely different scenery from thailand, very flat, very green, rice paddy fields etc. The weather was amazing again and we really enjoyed this part of cambodia so we definately left on a high and with good memories of our trip.
Cambodia is a lovely place, with kind people, but a very disturbing past. You dont see old people, or very few. Everyone is under 40. Its kind of strange and makes me feel sad when i think about why. People are nicer than thailand, but they are also very very poor and therefore more desperate. It was common to be hassled for tuk tuk, massage, you name it, sometimes it got really annoying but when you remember if they dont make any money they dont eat it puts things into perspective. I got a massage and pedicure from a woman on the beach who told me she had 5 kids and no husband anymore. She lived in a shack yet was determined that they would go onto university. So every time i felt annoyed, i tried to remember how poor and desperate people are.It's a shame.
I loved the cambodian food! Khmer
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this one in particular really upset me food is rich and creamy, and not very spicy. Typical curries included coconut and pineapple so it was right up my street. I have been writing down dishes i enjoyed so that when i go home i can maybe try to make them for myself!
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