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Hi everyone hope you're all happy and well.
We are so excited to see y'all in October and catch up with all the goss and news!
Well we made it to Cambodia. We took a bus from Thailand to the Cambodian border and literally got a few stamps in our passports and stepped into Cambodia. It was strange just walking from one country to the next and not catching a plane - weird.
Our first stop was Siem Reap to visit the world famous temple ruins of Angkor. We got up at the crack of dawn (which becomes quite a habit when travelling) and went by our hired tuk tuk for the day, to watch the sun rise from one of the temple ruins. To get there though we had a sleepy-eyed unexpected jungle trek up a mountain at 5.30am!! Quite a surprise i can tell you. But you have to put the effort in to reap the rewards......the temple was beautiful as was the sunrise view. In fact all of the temple ruins were beautiful especially the one with giant buddha faces (you will see in the pics) and the ones where nature had completely taken over in
the years and trees and their roots ripped through the ruins.
However....an extremely early start and seven ruins later in the scorching asian sun, we were very much templed out! A couple of times we lost our tuk tuk driver after him saying "see you other side" and then burning off into the distance, then we would get lost and have to walk miles to find him again. At this point the heat was like a furnance and sent us (well Helen) a bit funny with which she resorted to belly dancing (yes you read correctly - belly dancing) to make the most of it!! It was when I witnessed the awful things that place did to Helen, that I made the decision to call it a day with the ruins. Glad we went but never again.
So off we went the next day to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. It was brilliant here with lots of parks, colour changing water fountains, street dancing and a busy riverside. The riverside had a small temple with absolutely loads of cambodian worshippers pouring in and out, people selling books and cages of birds where you pay to set one free!
Angkor
The tree has taken over the temple over the years Crazy. The otherside of Phnom Penh was its dark history. We visited the Tuol Sleng museum, which was used as a torture prison for Cambodians that rebelled against the notorious Pol Pot Regime. It gave us a greater appreciation of Cambodia, its horrific history and what cambodian people endured throughout the years of the Khymer Rouge Regime 😞
Whilst here we visited a temple called Wat Phnom. It had a resident elephant called Sambo who was fantastic, we fed him plenty of bananas and just sat and watched in amazement as it was the closest we'd ever got to one!! The temple was good but mostly it was the family we met there that made it. Even though they couldn't speak English, we all seem to understand each other just fine. We enjoyed spending time with them and isn't their baby just beautiful?!! (look at the pics). This temple is for good fortune so you can imagine, we didn't half get on our dirty knees and prey hard!! you never know!!
We then moved on to a town called Kampong Cham, also alongside the Mekong River. Everyone in the streets kept stopping and staring and pointing so blatently....now we
Angkor
The nun who blessed us know we're gorgeous but when we walked past 3 policemen and turned around to see them bent over with laughter and shock, we soon realised that this little town certainly wasn't used to seeing foreigners! (and gorgeous ones at that!) The next day we caught what the guidebook described as a "ferry' to a little island on the river called Koh Paen. When the so called "ferry" pulled up it did not resemble a ferry whatsoever, apart from the fact that it floats!! Instead it was 2 wooden boats with a bamboo platform sat across the middle with a little engine attached to the side....so it was a raft with an engine!!! (thanks lonely planet!). When about 20 motorbikes plus riders, 20 push bikes plus riders, a whole load of locals and finally a horse that must have been as anxious getting on the 'ferry' as we were, as it repeatedly kept rearing up, we were convinced it would capsize!!! Well luckily we all (and the horse) got there in one piece. On the island the villiagers lived in wooden hand built houses on stilts. They were traditional Khymer people living off the lands through fishing and farming.
Whilst strolling
around we saw a local lady that we met on the "ferry", she waved us over to her home. Well this was where we spent the day, chilling out in the shade under the stilted house with her family. Soon the word spread that the foreigners had arrived and lots of people from the villiage were coming to see us and just hang around and watch us. They were all so welcoming and friendly, they made us lunch consisting of rice pudding and pickled cucumber (Helen was pleased as she'd spent ages trying to explain the word vegetarian to them, with the obvious language barriers, she suceeded!) So we tucked in and it was lovely. There was a man that spoke a little english and he translated to us that Nor, the lady who invited us in, had said she was to be our Khymer step mother....so sweet. We will never forget there kind hospitality.That evening we climbed a lighthouse (Helen needed a little push in the right direction however to get to the top, but she did it!) to watch the sun go down. It was a really lovely day.
Our next destination was Sen Monorom. It was
a tough ride as the roads (when there were roads at all) were still being built as we drove on them and it was pretty mountainous. As usual it was worth it because on arrival the views were beautiful. It was here that we went elephant trekking. You can see the pics, (although there aren't many as Helens battery was already dead and as we began my memory card became full....DOH!!) but it was most definately the best day so far for both of us, one never to forget. We trekked with an elephent each into the jungle to a waterfall where we swam and washed the elephants. The Mahoot of Helens elephant was only 8 years old which was a bit concerning at the time as he was in charge of a fully grown bull elephant with my bezzy mate on the back! BUt it was amazing, he drove the elephant like a true professional. In fact it was my adult mahoot that decided to jump off and run into the jungle in search of bananas, leaving me all alone on the elephant surrounded by dense jungle and with no idea whatsoever how to control an ellie! It kind
of attempted to walk off but then just hovered thank god, and then after the longest few minutes were over he was back bearing bunches of bananas which we then all munched on all the way to the waterfall. The day was such an experience we did not want it to end.
We are now in a place called Kratie and to get here involved a lot of patience and even more lychees!!! We jumped off a pick up and got directed to a minibus that looked like it had been dusted off after a bomb explosion. We sat on this bus while the driver walked off, we waited as people got on carrying huge bags of lychees! Half an hour later we watched a lady finish off her bag of juicy cockroaches much to our disgust but we couldn't show it as it is perfectly normal here to munch on a few insects as a snack! Still more lychees were getting loaded on which then attracted the mosquitos. It was getting hot and we were getting bitten to death! An hour later, more lychees, more mosquitos. Then finally we got on our way to Kratie transporting more lychees
and mossis that you ever thought possible. Whilst in Kratie, we took a boat on the Mekong river and watched the wild Irrawaddy river dolphins as the sun set. This was the perfect end to our Cambodia trip as we make our way to Laos in the morning. We will let you know what adventures Laos brings on the next blog.
Love and Miss you all Laura and Helen x x x
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jo
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hi
Hi Girls, helen just recieved your letter this morning (my last day at work!) and it could'nt have been better planned to have arrived on that day i read it out loud in the car as we drove to the uni so james could drop me off for the last time!!!!....its if you had planned the time!!!! thanks so much for your words of wisdom and encouragment. mate you really do know me well. i can't beleive it will be SO long until we see each other. I am READY for this trip though (well mentally not pysically!!) but i'm so happy for you both you sound as though you have really found yourselves on this trip and nothing can replace these experiences. Really sending you all my love and big squeezes!. the now nearly unemployed JB signing off xxxxxxx