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Published: July 17th 2008
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Hello,
long time no write!
Ok, I'll write in two parts...One: cambodja/thailand
Two: Laos
PART ONE
My last message was somewhere in Sihanoukville (Cambodja)
as far as I can remember. So we go back in time, exactly one month
ago...
After spending enought time in Sihanoukville we (Ann, Shane and me) would leave to the highlight of Cambodja: the temples of Angkor Wat!
I have to admit, before I went there, I didn't really know much about all the temples. I expected ONE big temple, but I got a lot more....
We stayed in the Angkor Hilton (3 euro's a night) in Siem Reap, absolutely great!
The plan was to visit most of the temples in about three days so we didn't have to rush. The first day we hired a tuk-tuk for the three of us.
We went to visit the temples who were a little bit further out of town, and a bit more ruines, so that we could build up our expectations towards the almighty Angkor wat, who is on the flag of cambodja.
The temples were nice, but indeed more ruines than temples.
The next day, we had the crazy idea to go
by bike!! And not only that,
we wanted to include the sunrise, so that meant we had to get up at 4.00 am to leave at 4.30! Ok, why not?
We got to Angkor Wat at about 5.00 am so it wasn't really dark anymore. On the way we saw people selling their fruits on the streets and some people jogging, ....hmmm. Crazy city, Siem Reap.
And all the tourists who go to Angkor wat are absolutely right. It IS amazing. It's absolutely huge and goes on forever. Little carvings everywhere.
After spending the whole morning there in the heat of the sun. We went on, to see some more! We saw great temples but I can't remember all the names of them. Some temples are overgrown by huges trees, and it shows the almighty power of nature. We saw the temples where they shot parts of Tomb raider.
The sad thing of it all is that everywhere, every single temple has their onw stalls with kids selling things to you, you don't need at all...
And at the end of the day, my ears were getting deaf at a certain kidsvoice-level, and sometimes I felt so helpless, because we
can't buy every bamboo-flute in every stall and every bracelet from every little kid, even if it is only ONE DOLLAH!!!! ooooof
That they, we all three crashed at 7.00 pm in the evening and didn't wake up untill 9.00 am the next morning.. to see some more temples.
We took it more tranquilo, and enjoyed the last 'templing'.
That night, some friends of Ann arrived as well in Siem reap and we had a little party with them. The next day, it was time to say goodby to my
dear friends and I had to move on to Thailand, because in Chiang Mai, Ann and Annaig (2 french girls, friends from new-zealand) were already waiting some days for me!
I took the most horrible busride in my life (uptill now) from Siem Reap over the Thai border to Bangkok. It's already too long ago to describe you all the details, but anyway, it was awfull believe me! Appartently the thai airways seems to pay the Cambodian government to fix the road as slowly as possible, so that people would fly into cambodja from Bangkok and pay lots more than the bus. It took me twelve hours. On my arrival
I informed for the quickest way to get to Chiang Mai (all the way up north in Thailand) and it would take me another 10 hours, I think. If I wanted to take the train the next morning, I would have to purchase my ticket in the train station. I search a tuk-tuk, and tried to explain with my hands and feet that I had half an hour to get to the station. I think he got the message and raced me all the way throught Bangkok at 22.00 o clock in the evening. I'm still thankful to him because we made it!
After that, I realized that I would only be one night in Bangkok, so I went to have a look in the famous 'kao san road'. It was an 'enlightening' experience. It felt like coming from the country-side in Romania, entering Paris. It was overwhelming and not really my cup of tea. I felt a bit sick in the stomach when seeing all those groups of 'backpackers' with their knee-long military-shorts, no t-shirt and standard one beer in the right hand, mostly walking together in groups from 6 to 7 people and nationality 8 out of 10
british! No offense (ok, maybe a little bit ), but I just wasn't in the mood for it all.
The next, I took a long and wonderful trainride all the way up to Chiang Mai. It was heaven compared to the busride the day before. They even bring you food! Upon my arrival, i fell in a big hug of my old travelcompanions and it felt a like home.
We didn't spend too much time in Chiang Mai because they had been waiting five days for me, and had seen enough. I convinced them, to go with me into Laos, rather than staying in touristy Thailand, and lucky enough, they totally agreed. So the next day, we took the bus to the border in Chiang Khong. Ok, this is the end of part one!
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