Saavas Arrives in Phu Quoc Monk checked out of the hotel and did a spot of exploring around Doung Dong town before catching a taxi the few kilometres down to Long Beach, where he'd booked the Mai House Hotel for himself and Saavas. Saavas was due to arrive around 15:00 and, in a rare moment of unselfishness, Monk chose the bungalow back from the beach leaving the sea-view bungalow for Saavas. Monk heard the sound of a taxi coming down the dirt track and shortly afterwards caught a glimpse of someone, very much resembling a famous Iranian comedian, strolling down through the gardens with a pile of newspapers tucked under his arm looking for all the world as though he was strolling down to the Park Tavern on a Sunday morning for a couple of pints ... read more

Exploring Kampot - the Market, Kampot Train Station and Around Town Today Monk decided to explore more of Kamport town and hired a bike for 75 US cents. The market in Kampot is amazing. Apart from all the fruit and vegetables, much of which Monk couldn't even put a a name to, there was just about every type of meat, live fish and live birds. Sacks and sacks of rice, of course, but also dried fish, dried prawns and lots of dried fungi. The whole place was bustling with shoppers. Monk spent the best part of an hour just wandering in amazement. Monk's a bit of a trainspotter and just had to find the train station to investigate what the situation is regarding the trains in Cambodia. There's a train line that runs from Phnom Penh ... read more

Siem Reap to Phnom Penh Another early start saw Nellie and Monk catching the 8:50 flight to Phnom Penh. Monk had asked the hotel to arrange for a tuk-tuk at 07:00 and to his surprise it was Samnang who was waiting - Monk now felt less guilty about sacking him a couple of days before. It turns out that Samnang is one of a rota of 25 or so drivers on the hotel's list. They are allocated guests on a rotary basis and, if the hotel is fully booked, he can expect to be allocated a new guest as the previous leaves. At low times, it can be 2 weeks before he gets called again and during this time he has to join the ranks of the other tuk-tuk drivers hanging around on corners, accosting tourists ... read more

Visiting the Angkor Sites First stop on the tour was to buy the entrance ticket - $20 for one day, $40 for 3 consecutive days and $40 for 3 days in a week. Despite asking Samnang and the ticket booth people, Monk still fails to understand exactly why there are 2 types of 3-day tickets given that the '3 days in a week' ticket also serves the purpose of 3 consecutive days. The ticket procedure is very efficent and includes a photograph being taken and printed on the pass - so be warned - if you want to keep the ticket as a souvenir, a hair brush after the tuk-tuk ride and a bit of lippy will save you embarassment in the years to come. Samnang suggested skipping Angkor Wat today and moving straight on to ... read more

Malaysia Airlines and Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Monk decided to fly via KL with Malaysia Airlines mostly because from KL, Malaysia fly on to Siem Reap and back from Saigon with a single airline handling the transit baggage. The alternative of going via Bangkok involves switching to Bangkok Air which Monk thinks is not the best airline at handling transit baggage. Bangkok Air is also very expensive. The Malaysia Airlines flight was fine - plenty of legroom - food OK and no problems requesting an extra glass of wine or two. However, at the moment KLIA is not a particularly good interchange airport because the aerotrain shuttle between the satellite terminal, where gates C1-C37 are, and the other gates in the main terminal is out of action until March 15th 2011. If you arrive in ... read more