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Published: March 30th 2007
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Leanne petting a Tiger
Can't say I wasn't scared! Sun 25th: Well today we travelled from Siem Reap (Cambodia) to Bankok (Thailand). Quite sad, we'll both really miss Cambodia and the Khmer people. We didn't like them at first finding them hard and cold, but then they grow on you, Leanne nearly cried.
The bus journey was forever. After 5 1/2 hours across Route 6* we reached the border at Poipet. The roads bounced the bus about, it was so full that the rucksacks were put all down the walkway and to make it worse Leanne still has an ear infection which seems to have started a few days ago.
*Note - Route 6 is a notoriously bad road between Thailand and Cambodia. The Thai Government illegally pay the Cambodian government to keep the road in poor condition so that tourists opt to fly. Co-incidently many people in the higher ranks of the Thai government own large shareholdings in Thai Airways - the only company that flies on this route.
So the bus gets to Poipet (Still in Cambodia), we walk to immigration and get our departure cards stamped. Luckily Poipet is a legally open border crossing, unlike Voen Kham/Stung Treng where we crossed into Cambodia from
Crazy guy
This guy picks people up on his bike and takes them to the bar he owns. The kid is one of the Cyclowns'. Laos, so no illegal bribery charge to allow us to cross the border. Moving on, we walked toward the Thai flags, did the Visa On Arrival thing and then walked about half a mile to the bus station.
The 2nd bus from Poipet (Cambodia)/Aranyaprathet (Thailand) bus station was great, we had a proper coach type bus. Luxury.
Got to Bangkok at about 7.30pm-ish, checked in to MyHouse Guesthouse (350 Baht a night) and went to chemist to get something for Leanne. Can't have anti-biotics because our anti-malarial Doxycline is already an anti-biotic, so Eardrops were suggested.
Mon 26th: Woke up and did a reconnaisance mission SAS style to find out postage costs, 900 Baht for a kilo but only 380 Baht per subsequent kilo (We have a 1000 Baht budget daily, and our bags are getting fuller and heavier with stuff by the day.)
Later at the bank we bumped into Bernie (One of the 2 girls we met in Sihanoukville) so we arranged to meet up for a drink later.
So after pottering about a bit we met up with Bernie and Julie (The 2 girls from Sihanoukville) and 2 of their friends Chunkie and Toni. After
a few drinks Matt joined the 3 girls and Chunkie and had a massage (Thai massages are not relaxing, I still feel bruised now). After that we all got into 2 Tuk-tuks and went to see a Ping-Pong show.
Basically a Ping-pong show is a kind of sex show, but not. Table-tennis balls become projectiles fired from the most unlikely of bodily crevices.
It wasn't sexy in the least, but it was funny. One of the women dancers/bottle holders/bottle openers/ping-pong canons - whatever she was, kept feeling Leanne's breasts. The beer was realy expensive so after a while we all left.
Tue 27th: Lazy day, we just walked round and round the Khoasan Area (That's all people seem to do here. Spent a few hours in the room. Leanne's ear is killing her. Later we wnet to dinner and watched 'The worlds fastest indian.' (Anthony Hopkins) It was rubbish. Saw the Cyclowns. Cyclowns are basicallythese people that go around the world on modified bicycles (2 bikes welded on top of each other) and play instruments like the fiddle, violin, accordian and survive on the donations people give them. They sound like you'd imagine a very old Parisian side-street
to, Toulouse Le'trec could be just next door.
Wed 28th: Another lazy day, just walking around Khoasan. Bumped into Bernie, Julie and Toni again and at the same time bumped into the American couple we knew from Don Det (Laos). All of whom seem to be going to Koh Tao aswell, but a day before us!
Decided to book the bus/boat ticket to Koh Tao for the day after tommorow and get accomodation through the internet. It cost more, but we get there 2 days before the Full-moon party starts, so there might not be any left if we just turn up. It happens to a lot of peiople and they just have to sleep on the beach.
We also bought a tour to go and see Tiger temple and the bridge over the River Kwai.
After that we met up with Julie, Bernie, Chunkie and Toni and said our goodbye's to everyone (they all leave today), although we'll see them all no doubt in Koh Toa. We also bumped into the German lad we met on the bus from Phnomm Penn to Siem Reap, but he and his brother we're in a rush with their backpacks on to
get the bus to Koh Phangon.
Thur 29th: Got up and got our mini-bus. First stop was a coconut factory where we tried sugar made from coconuts. It was more of a restaurant/toilet stop than anything else. Next was the floating market, which as the name suggestes is a market with stalls that are built on stilts and you go around by boat. Like Venice, but Asian.
After that we went to the Snake Show. It was great, there were snake wrestlers, and we were show how to extract venom, and that a snake has 2 penises (Peni), and we touched a cobra for good luck. The highlight of the show for Matt was watching a snake (indian Cobra) and a mongoose.
After bad experinces so far with snakes, some retribution was due. Unfortunately the first snake didn't seem to interest the mongoose, he kind og ignored it and kept standing on his hind legs tried to scratch at his glass wall in the direction of one particular one. So after a while they put that one in. The cobra tried to bit the mongoose, but he just bit the snakes face and then just grabbed him.
Snake V.s Man.
The dumbass snake kept biting the towel. Sankes are stupid, Mongoose is far smarter and harder. The snake worker people, not wanting to kill the snake, then took it out - except at the last minute the mongoose jumped like Micheal Jordan and snatched the Cobra right out of his hand. The second attempt at retreiving the snake was more effective. After that the mongoose just sat down and sulked. Matt now wants a pet mongoose for travelling with.
Next stop was Kanchanuburi, which is where the famous Bridge over the river Kwai is. Unfortunatley, not one single person in our party had heard of the film, or of the bridge. So Matt was like an outcast.
Last stop was Tiger temple. The story basically goes like this...
There was an orphaned tiger cub. Would have died on it's own. Noone wanted to look after it. Some Buddhist monk dude, with the orange robes and all said "Yeah, that's cool, I'll look after the tiger cub thing."
and then more and more people just offloaded there unwanted tiger orphan cubs on him. Having a collection of tiger cubs that were about as good at hunting as an earthworm seemed like hard work. So the monk dude set a temple as a toursist attraction
Bridge over the river Kwai
There was a film about it, honestly there was, even if nobody else believes me. there was. to fund the upkeep of the animals. Later with animal right etc. he decided he'd breed the old tigers to make new ones. The new cubs that show the best potential are then slowly trained to be wild again, and eventually released.
So we did the obligutary tourist shots with tigers, but they were all far too hot to move. It almost seemed cruel. The cubs however, you can stroke them and they're really playful and far more full of character than the overheated adults were. Leanne was happy because they also had cows, ponies, piglets, peacocks, buffalo and other animals at the temple. (Matt didn't like to explain that when these cubs are trained to hunt for themselves, these are for practice.)
That was about that for today, although Leanne's ear is starting to get better.
Fri 30th: Checked out of hotel, walked round Khoasan again, updated this blog and just killed some time untill 6pm, which is the time our bus leaves to Koh Tao (Southern Thailand)
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