The final chapter.

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With apologies for the delay (some of our most avid readers have complained...), here is the final instalment of our blog.

We left you hanging in Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. We spent a great afternoon there visiting the royal palace which is a smaller and less tourist-infested version of the one in Bangkok. Similar levels of gold and Buddha statues though. We were joined in our visit by the King of Malaysia, who was then to reappear in Angkor Wat at the same temple as us one evening (he clearly had the same edition of Lonely Planet as us!).

We had decided to splash out a little on a decent hotel in our next destination, Siem Reap, closest town to Angkor Wat, as we knew we'd be spending hot and sweaty days looking around the temples and so fancied some luxury in the evenings. We knew we'd chosen well when we were met off our fly-infested, squeaky-braked local bus by two members of staff (both in full uniform) to escort us to our private vehicle and refreshing cold towels for the transfer to the hotel. Bit of a change from our usual mode of transport from the bus station to our bed for the night! The hotel was really stylish and had a lovely salt-water infinity pool and four course breakfast to set you up for the day.

Angkor Wat is in fact just one of a vast collection of buildings, constructed between about the 11th and 13th centuries, spread over an area of about 50km. There is a great variety of temples, monasteries, palaces and tombs in varying states of collapse and each with a number of stories about the rulers who lived or prayed there. Due to various wars and invasions during the period (including battles with our old chums the Champa civilsiation, for our regular readers...) the in religion fluctuated between Hinduism and Buddhism quite regularly. You can see the effect of this with whole Buddist temples with the heads of all the Buddhas cut off and, to get their own back when the religious zeitgeist shifted, carvings of Hindi Gods with Buddhas scratched over them like ancient graffiti.

We spent a couple of days exploring the "lesser" temples and palaces by bicycle and by tuk tuk, working up to the main event itself on our last evening there. Angkor Wat itself is as spectacular as you have heard, from the grand King's entrance to the huge swimming pools for worshippers to cleanse themselves and the amazing engravings of traditional Hindi stories. We were soon charmed as millions of others have been, even though the sun did not co-operate with a spectacular sunset. Siem Reap was also a lovely town in itself with great restaurants and bars for the end of the day when you're feeling "templed out".

We reluctantly dragged ourselves onto a plane and flew from Siem Reap to Bangkok (avoiding a 12 hour bumpy bus ride!) and went straight to Pattaya as it is the closest beach resort to Bangkok and we had a few days to spare and fancied some beach and sun. Interesting place. We had heard it was a bit seedy but we weren't prepared for the sheer number of western men holding hands with local girls. We found we were in a real minority and people would look at us and wonder what we had come to Pattaya in search of! A couple of days of enjoying some of the western-isation (cinema, bowling, starbucks...), we headed for the relative civilisation of Bangkok!

We had a great last few days in Bangkok, shopping in Patpong (only for fake clothes, shoes and watches, not the ping pong shows which everyone is so keen to sell!), visiting the lettuce farm palace (lovely little traditional wooden palace) and admiring the komodo dragons swimming in the lakes in Lumpini park. We also spent a day in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya getting a final fix of palaces and temples and a final boat ride for old time's sake!

We then reluctantly left South East Asia and backpacking behind and headed to Dubai for a complete change of scene for the final leg of our trip. We managed to sneak our backpacks into an awesome hotel there (with the justification of it being Matt's birthday), just opposite the Burj al Arab and with water taxis to take you around the huge resort of 2 hotels, a shopping centre disguised as a souk and about 75 restaurants. We made the most of our civilised and elegant surroundings by heading to Wild Wadi waterpark 3 times! Great fun rides, sliding around in tubes and being dropped from a tower in a narrow tube which is not far off a sheer vertical drop in places (and is apparently the fastest water ride outside North America - it certainly seemed pretty rapid!).

We also showed our class by spending a day doing the Big Bus tour around town to see all the new construction and the Dubai version of temples and palaces: huge shopping malls and hotels!

We scrubbed ourselves up and wore our fake designer gear for lunch in the restaurant at the top of the Burj al Arab, with great views over the sea and surrounding coast and suitably luxurious food (including wagyu beef topped with a generous serving of foie gras and gold leaf salad - literally gold leaves as a garnish on salad! - the most decadent meal you could ever hope to have).

Since the final day of our trip came around far too quickly, we made the most of it by swimming in the sea, skiing in the snow dome (real snow, minus 4 degrees in the desert!), lounging by the pool and eating too much at the hotel's spectacular buffet restaurant, trying to find dishes from all the places we had been!

After nearly 3 months, about 30 hotels, 7 flights, 3 overnight trains, too many buses and 6 countries, we finally had to accept the inevitable and return to the UK, backpacks and all. Thanks to those that have made it to the end of our blog, and here's to the next trip!

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Comments

[jim]

Palin and Bryson
Thank goodness for that - the suspense had been killing me. Whilst you were away messrs Palin and Bryson heard of the blog and, realising that they could not compete, promptly topped themselves. The lonely planet is now less lonely thanks to your insigtful blog. I am forever in your debt.