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Published: December 24th 2009
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We've been a little lazy with the blog lately so thought we'd take a little time on Christmas Eve to catch up...
The day after the last blog was a day we'd been looking forward to the whole trip when we were to go to Angkor Wat - the largest religious site in the world. Up in time for sun rise (4.30am to be precise) was not an easy task, made worse by the fact that our driver was still asleep on the hostel floor while we were waiting outside for him. When we finally got going it was a bit of a mad dash to get there before the sun came up, thankfully we made it just in time. After brandishing our $20 passes to the site we were ushered through with the hundreds of other tourists doing the same. The sun came up over the back of Angkor Wat which was really a rather marvellous site and worth the early start.
Angkor Wat is a temple complex at Angkor, Cambodia, built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is
the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to the god Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. It has become a symbol of Cambodia, appearing on its national flag, and it is the country's prime attraction for visitors (thank-you Wikipedia!!). The site of Angkor Wat is huge, although all the sites are amazing the most impressive of all is Ta Prohm where all the ruins are engulfed by tree roots. The ruins although still clearly visible are almost balancing on the trees and roots. It's easy to see why this was the chosen site for filming the Tomb Raider movie, it's very impressive. We stayed here for most of the day or until we could walk no longer.
We spent the next few days enjoying Siem Reap, mooching round the markets and job hunting before heading off to Bangkok again. Another lengthy journey and border crossing into Thailand. Much to our horror we were only given a 15 day visa for Thailand this time (normal for a land border crossing we found out later) which meant that we now needed to schedule
in a visa run in the middle of December - a cost we could have done without. We spent that night in bangkok and the next day got a bus to Phuket.
In Phuket we had arranged to stay with a friend of my dads in his own villa near Bang Tao beach. We were staggered when we arrived at the most beautiful villa with a lovely big blue pool and gorgeous pet dog! What a fantastic way to spend the next couple of weeks. And this is exactly what we did, hanging around the pool in the day and heading out to a rather fabulous bar called Supper Club of an evening what could be better. It was really rather interesting for us to get involved in the Expat life style after so many months of backpacking and dirty hostels to stay in! Unfortunately this had to come to an end as our visas wouldn't allow us any more time here so on the 12th of December we packed up once more and headed for the airport where we took a flight to KL, Malaysia. We spent a couple of days wondering round the very expensive shopping malls,
admiring clothes we could never afford. It was nice to find that in KL they had made a huge deal of Christmas and there are decorations everywhere. Unfortunately we couldn't spend all our time like this as we had to sort out the visas which involved 3 hours waiting at the Thai embassy, followed by another few hours the following day. On the day of pick up we found a fantastic aquarium nearby and spent a good few hours looking at all the weird and wonderful animals here and walked through the shark tunnel like kids in a sweet shop.
Once more back to Bangkok on the 16th where we decided to chill out for the evening before setting off again the next day to where we are settled now - Ko Samet Island. Samet is probably the most beautiful of the places we've been so far and we've found ourselves a nice little wooden hut facing the beach to spend Christmas in. From where I sit now I can see a Christmas tree made from beer bottles on the beach!
Happy Christmas and New Year to everyone back home, we shall see you very soon (flights are
booked for the 26th of Jan).
E & A. xxxxxxxxxxx
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Bev
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Happy Christmas
Have a great Christmas, lots and lots of love from Tom and me we can't wait to see you in Jan.....xxx