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Published: December 30th 2008
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Our travels have now taken us up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, where we arrived by plane yesterday afternoon. A bit of poor poor planning on our part meant we were too late to book an overnight sleeper train so the more expensive option had to be taken. It was good to get a birds eye view of Thailand on a really clear day, and pretty much hassle free.
Since the last proper blog entry we have 'done' Cambodia and in the end it ended up doing us.
We left Saigon and travelled up the Mekong through the border and up towards Phnom Penh. The trip on the Mekong was brilliant, taking two small boats up by the banks of the river, watching the kids waving and dancing enthusiastically from the waters edge, excited to see the tourists drift past. Half way through the journey we were starting to feel like HRH The Queen and her better half as we developed an energy saving circular hand motion to signal to our adoring public.
It was really interesting to see how the river was being used by the people that live on it for fishing, farming, washing, swimming,
cleaning, travelling, selling and sleeping. We were taken to a floating village with a huge catfish farm underneath it. When food was thrown in for them it resembled the start of the Boxing day sales in Plymouth as the slimy fish were fighting and leaping to get a piece of the action. We also went to a little village where I treated myself to a shot of snake wine, served fresh from a vat swimming with dead snakes and a starling-like bird, whose soaked feathers were ruffled as my glass scraped its back. The wine was decent enough, a bit like Sake, but left an odd taste in the back of the throat.
We had a mixed time in Phnom Penh. The first day we walked around the crowded, dirty streets, being scorched by the baking sun and developed a bad taste for the place. We just wanted to find somewhere to sit and breathe and thought the banks of the big lake to the north would be ideal. Unfortunately it seemed to be surrounded by fences and shacks, which was really disappointing. The same was true for the banks of the Tonle Sap river that intersects the city.
All the places that could have been really decent public areas had been sold off and closed off, meaning no access. Annoying.
Our second day there was better as we chartered our new favourite tuk-tuk driver, 'Cabbie', to take us to the sites of the Khymer Rouge atrocities of the 1970s. It was both chilling and fascinating to visit the former school which was used as a prison and torture chamber, and the 'Killing Fields', just south of the city brought the scale of it all into focus. It is amazing the the Cambodian people have managed to move on so quickly from that, and to think that everyone there over 30 years of age was around when it was all happening makes it more real. In the afternoon I bought an 'Angkor Beer' t-shirt from the Russian Market and managed to get the woman down to $1.50, which brought a smile to my face.
Siem Reap was much better than Phnom Penh (at the start), and we found it to be far more developed, with much more money invested into it than the capital city. With Angkor on its doorstep and the flood of wealthy foreign tourists
that it brings, it was well geared up for visitors and we were looking forward to having a wonderful Christmastime there. On Christmas eve we took a tuk tuk tour around some of the awesome temples, which exceeded my expectations and were truly amazing pieces of work. The sunset at Phnom Bakheng was a tourist jostle to get the best spot but the sun itself had the last laugh as it disappeared quietly behind a haze. On Christmas morning we were up at 5 am and on our way to Angkor Wat for a sunrise picnic breakfast. The sunrise was excellent over the lake and some daft woman even decided to fall in to add to the spectacle.
Just after that everything took a downturn and Catherine got ill. I managed to drag her around three more temples before she got her way and by 10am we were back in the guest house. The illness turned out to be genuine (leaving me feeling a bit guilty about the extra temple excursions) and meant Christmas, Boxing Day and the day after were spent between the room and the ensuite. Ding Dong Merrily on high. To top it off, I got
ill as well and we are both just getting over it now. So, you'll be happy to know, not much else to report since then except a dodgy seedy hostel in Bangkok and a pleasant introduction to the north.
We had planned to stay here a few days but again lack of planning has been our downfall and can't get out of here for a week now. Could think of worse places to be stuck. It's not exactly Rotherham.
Stay Safe and Happy New Year (from Catherine too)!
Nic.
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