The Christmas that never happened

Still no photos - camera still knackered. 

The journey from Krabi was an interesting one. Annie, Lizi and I turned up at the bus station and met 3 other people who were also travelling to the islands. They were...

Rourke (this was honestly his name) - a friendly Canadian medical student.

Thomas - A 43 year-old German guy.

Maxi - Thomas' 25 year-old girlfriend. (Thomas had done well for himself).

As soon as we got on the bus there was clearly a problem. Six of us and only 2 seats on the bus full of people who had clearly been on there for hours, possibly days already judging by their glazed expressions.

No Problem! said the bus guys and opened what seemed to be a luggage compartment in the bowels of the bus. With dread we clambered in, but were amazed to find a little table with a comfy bench round it. Rourke pulled up a box and the 6 of us fitted in snugly but comfortably. The three hour bus ride turned into the best bit of travelling we've done as we spent the journey playing 'who am I?' round the table. 

We later arrived at Surat Thani, a port town with various boats going to the Thai islands. We all had stickers to show where we were going, which made me feel like I was on a school trip. We dumped our bags on the boat to Kho Phagnan and prepared ourselves for the night boat - 2 levels of mattresses laid next to each other  so we were shoulder to shoulder with the strangers next to us.

And strange one of them was. Just as we were about to set off a right werdo got on and scared the shit out of Annie. He slept opposite and was just being a general sex pest so we didn't get much sleep for the 7 hour journey. 

We arrived at about 6am on the island, stressed,  sleep-deprived and headachey. Straight to the hostel for much needed sleep.

Once we'd had a few hours we set about getting things ready for xmas day the next morning. Unfortunately both Annie and  Lizi were feeling pretty rough so we just had to cross our fingers and hope they'd be better by the morning.

The next morning we did presents (I got 2 books, some soap and an afternoon of my choice like canoeing or something - excellent presents!), had some breakfast and then I went for a morning swim. A bit later we headed down to the beach for lunch, but the girls were still feeling dodgy so our xmas merriment was pretty forced. I had the most disgusting burger for xmas lunch - more of a gristle patty than a burger really.  Later on we all got to skype our friends and families which was great. But as soon as we were done Annie crashed out on the sofa in the internet cafe and Lizi wasn't feeling too hot either. So xmas turned into a trip to the chemist for sleeping pills, painkillers and water, followed by an early night.

Today (boxing day) we declared xmas a write off and we'll do it properly in a few days' time. Hopefully everyone will be back on form by then. 

 

The Great Escape

No photos with this blog as my camera is knackered from all the sand in it.

Two days of very tiring travelling and we finally arrived in Krabi. It felt great to be back in Thailand and be based somewhere for a few days at least. Food much nicer than Cambodia, prices much cheaper, people much friendlier. Krabi itself is pretty stunning, with huge rock formations jutting up from the land and sea. Stalacmites and stalactites everywhere and even some monkeys thrown in for fun.

It's very odd seeing xmas trees everywhere but it's so hot that I burn in 10 minutes on the beach. My body can't quite work it out. I've tried to kick start it into xmas mode by downloading 80 classic xmas tracks and listening to them on the beach, but it still feels weird.

Today Annie, Lizi and I travel to Kho Phangan - a small island on the other side of the mainland. We arrive on xmas eve and spend about 2 weeks there before I head home.

I got chatting to a Dutch guy on a boat yesterday. I had been thinking I was looking pretty brown by now, but apparently not.
"How long have you been travelling"
"Oh about 6 weeks now, mostly in Thailand"
"So why are you so white?"
"Erm, oh, I just don't tan."

So apparently I won't be returning home looking any rosier than if I'd just been for a jog.

Krabi - I got this photo off Google

Sihanoukville

The last few days have been down on the southern coast in a town called Sihanoukville, Cambodia's only real beach resort.

Lots of lazing around on beaches, drinking cocktails and forgetting the bustle of Phnom Penh and Siam Reap. I hired a bike yesterday and rode up to Victory Hill - one of the other parts of the town - in the blazing sun. It's quite hilly here so I was lucky to have a bike with gears - a novelty in Cambodia. Managed to have a good cycle round and felt like I'd done something at least. The sweatiness proved it.



There are 3 bad bits about Sihanoukville / Cambodia.
1) There doesn't seem to be a regular rubbish collection or any bins for that matter, so the rubbish from the restaurants is just heaped out on the street to sit in the blazing sun all day. It's a formidable scent. It stings the nostrils.

Beach sellers by sunset

2) When you're trying to relax on the beach you constantly get hounded by kids selling bracelets and fireworks - "open your heart and open your wallet mister!", women selling massages and pedicures or amputees begging for money. It's really sad to see cos there was probably a landmine involved somewhere, but if you gave money to all of them you would spend a fortune - they're everywhere.

3) The money here is very confusing. You pay in dollars and then get a mix of dollars and Cambodian Riel in return. It's 4,000 Riel to one dollar and they have 100 Riel notes, so you end up with a huge wad of money that is pretty useless. Also, nobody ever seems to have change. If the bill comes to $6.50 and you give a $10 note, they make a noise like a builder giving an estimate ("it's gonna cost ya") and ask if you have anything smaller. Well no. No I don't. A massive wad of Riel is then thrust in my direction.

So Lizi, Annie and I are busting out of here tomorrow with travel plans back to Thailand where the people are less pushy, the money is less confusing and the rubbish collection seems to be better organised.

Escape!

I did end up having a pedicure on the beach. My feet look bloody lovely.

How many Cambodians can you fit in a Toyota?

Me and Sopheun

The last couple of days in Kampot I have been a bit ill with a bug so didn't really do much, although I did manage to get back out to the monastery me and Lilli had stumbled across the previous day. As there was a school attached to the monastery, Sopheun (the monk who said he liked my hair) had invited us to come and teach some of the kids who study various subjects there.

So Lilli, Juanita (another teacher from the hostel) and I went down there and were given classes of about 25 students each. They were a bit shellshocked at first but then they started asking questions and we played some games and did some pronunciation work for an hour. It was fun and if I was staying in Kampot for longer I would go back.

My class

But it was time to move on and I ordered a shared taxi for the 2 hour drive to Sinhouksville which is the one main beach resort in Cambodia. I had heard that they cram in as many people as they can and as I was feeling dodgy I paid a bit extra to have a seat to myself in the front. The car turned up - just a normal size Toyota car - not a van or anything.Then we went round Kampot picking up other people for the journey. More and more crammed in until there were SEVEN people just in the back seat (one was a small kid to be fair, but kids are people too). I was impressed.

But THEN a guy climbed in and sat with the driver in his seat, so the driver was kind of half on the chair, half on the handbrake and the other guy was squashed up against the window.

So how many Cambodians can you fit in a Toyota? Nine. Plus me.  

Joni Mitchell - River

Rain & Bikes

I got out of Kompong Cham pretty sharpish as I think I'd seen petty much all the town had to offer. Another day of bus journeys ahead.

Rice and soy bean packages

At our toilet stop there were massive deep friend spiders to eat and big bags of fried bugs. I bought some crackers instead. I was sat next to two really nice local women on the bus who fed me rice packaged in vine leaves and banana crisps on the way to Kampot. Very friendly.

and I found myself in Kampot and had my first view of the south coast as we travelled through a little village called Kep. It has a long beach and lots of huts with hammocks for tourists to hang out in. It would have been nice if it wasn't hammering it down with rain and I almost didn't want to get off the bus into the rain and mud.

First stop a hostel and I found a room for $3 a night (cheapest so far!) at Blissful hostel. A nice little place with a great garden, friendly bar and lots of other people to talk to.

There was a poker tournament on last night so a few hours later I was round a very international table - German, French, English, American okay maybe not that international - and putting my best poker face on. 15 of us started and I got down to the last 5 which I was happy with. The two finalists were a German girl and a French guy who obviously both played a lot. Apparently the French guy had cleaned up the previous week so was the hot favourite, but Judy the German kept her cool and won. A big round of applause from everyone at the bar.

Today I went down for breakfast and the place was pretty empty apart from a French girl who I had spoken to for a bit the night before. She had no plans so we hired a bike (bicycle mum, don't worry) and went to find what we could find.

The market

We rode to a market and walked around a maze of shops that sold everything from fish to hats to engagement rings. The best thing about it was that not one person said 'Buy Something Sir?' to me. It's clearly a much more different attitude down here. As we rode along, people were shouting hello, waving, just generally being really friendly. A very different feel from Phnom Penh and Siam Reap - I like it a lot.

Kid playing with a condom

We passed a little beach where some friendly local kids were splashing about. As we looked closer it turned out one of them was playing with a condom (hopefully not used) as a balloon. Lovely. 

We ended up at a temple and started chatting to a couple of monks. One of them told me I was beautiful and that he liked my hair. I said thanks. What else can you say?

Suddenly there was a massive rumble of thunder and Lilli and I decided it was time to head back before a storm came.

HEAVY rain

We got about 30 seconds down the road before the rain came and we had to pull into a cafe and hide out for an hour or so while the HEAVIEST rain I've ever seen poured down and turned the roads into rivers and the dust into thick mud. It really cleared the hot stickiness of the air and made the ride back much less sweaty. 

As soon as there was a break in the rain we jumped on the bike and sped back to the hostel. We managed to get back fairly dry but pretty knackered and ready for some food and a game of petanque in the garden.

Lovely day!

Monkey Mountain

An early start and a minivan came by to pick me up from the hostel in Siem Reap at 6.30am. I had picked a random place on the map to travel to - Kompong Cham -  a small town on the Mekong in the south of the country.

French-influenced bus breakfast

The bus journey was 6 hours - not bad - but I was sat right at the front and every 10 seconds the driver would honk the extra loud horn to let motorbike riders know we were coming up behind them. Throw a few screaming kids into the mix and it wasn't the most relaxing journey. I was the only westerner on the bus so I was hoping to get a bit of a feel of non-touristy Cambodia.

Arrived in Kompong Cham, dumped my stuff in a cheap and basic hostel and went out to find what I could. I bumped into a westerner on the street so asked her what there was to do around here. She said pretty much nothing so it looked like it was going to be a bit of a let down of an afternoon. Then she said, Oh, but there's a monkey mountain nearby". Result.

Monkey!

Monk!

Five minutes later I was in a tuk tuk on my way to monkey mountain. It was a little old Buddhist temple on a mountain. $2 to get in and about 50cents for a big bunch of bananas to feed the monkeys. I met a friendly monk who was sweeping the temple and wanted to practice his English. I gave him half my bananas and we fed loads of little monkeys and a couple of larger ones which made me consider the fact that I hadn't had my rabies jab. They were very friendly and docile though and it was good having the chance to chat to a monk after I missed my 'Monk Chat' a few weeks earlier. 

Big smarmy head

I went for a walk around the temple area - it was almost totally deserted and it really felt like a long way from Siam Reap. A nice change to much more rural and local Cambodia.

Despite its pushiness compared to Thailand, the dust, the noise and the general mad traffic, I really like Cambodia. The people are really friendly and reading about their history it shows what a horrific time they've had.

1st aid kit

Poor but effective bandaging

Oh, and I had to bandage my ankle up after I caught it in an ATM door. It's not bad but it bloody hurt and I'm trying to keep the dust out. 

Angkor Wat

After 8 hours sat on the bus next to a smelly man mountain who crushed me into the window, I was very glad to finally get to Siem Reap and after I'd dumped my stuff I went out to meet Lizi and Annie who had also just arrived.

Siem Reap is a the nearest town to Angkor Wat (the largest religious building in the world I found out!) so it's a really busy town with loads of different nationalities passing through for a few days to see the temples. It wasn't something that was on my list of things to do here - I didn't really know much about it - but as I ended up in Cambodia I thought I would. And I'm glad I did - it's stunning.


The temple complex is huge and a lot of it is in ruins. But it's vast. We spent a good 4-5 hours there and saw 4 or 5 temples including the main one, but you can buy a 3 day pass if you really want to explore it. Some of Tomb Raider was filmed there apparently and it had a real Indiana Jones feel about. it.

Of course there were thousands of tourists, but because it's so large you can just walk off into the surroundings and explore the rubble with no tourists about. The crickets in the trees created this eerie screeching sound that followed you around and there were little sound pockets where the acoustics made it really loud.





The only thing that took away from it were the people trying to sell you stuff. One of the main differences between Thailand and Cambodia is pushiness. The Thais were rarely pushy and always respected a 'no thank you' with a smile.

Cambodians are pushy to the point where you want to swear at them.
'Buy something sir?'
'No thanks'
'T-shirt sir?'
'No thank you'
'Çold water sir?.
'Got some thanks.'
'Postcard sir?'
'No thanks'
'Tuk tuk sir?'
Í'm already in a f****ing a tuk-tuk'


And on, and on, and on...


Note: I haven't actually sworn at a Cambodian yet.

The Heart of Darkness

Met up with an Aussie guy in the hostel in Phnom Penh. We got chatting and decided to go out to see what the city had to offer. Scott looked like a mix between Jesus and The Dude from The Big Lebowski. No bad thing.

I had had a day at the killing fields and other horrendous exhibitions so was up for something a bit more lighthearted. I'm not going to write about the killing fields - it's something you just have to go to and it's amazing to think that it happened so recently.

Anyway, we asked a local tuk tuk driver and he suggested a bar called 'The Heart of Darkness'. Didn't sound that uplifting, but we gave it a go anyway. Sure enough it was pretty seedy and after a quick drink and we escaped the local prostitutes and went to play pool until our tuk tuk driver, Rota, wandered into the bar looking very tired having waited for us for about 4 hours. We took pity on him and he drove us home.

Scott exercising

The next day Scott and I bumped into each other again over lunch and decided to do something cultural, so we went for a walk along the river where we found an exercise park. We gave it a go, but struggled on the monkey bars. They LOVE to exercise over here. Before and after work big groups of people do aerobics in parks.

Disappointed at The 'Silver' Pagoda

Anyway, we went to the palace. I just wanted to see The Silver Pagoda which I imagined to be silver. I was wrong. It's called the silver pagoda because the floor is tiled with hundreds of foot-square silver tiles. Impressive still, but not so impressive if you cover up the tiles with carpets. So we got to see about 20 tiles.

Cone envy

I was disappointed so decided to cheer myself up with a Çrunchy Cone (like a cheap cornetto) from the nearby ice-cream stand. It had no cone (which I guessed was just how they roll over here) so I had to eat the ice cream from the packet while I stood under a sprinkler to cool off. Scott liked the look of my Crunchy Cone so he went and got himself one. His had a cone. Mine was a dud. I enjoyed it anyway so didn't take it back.

Sunset over the palace

Later in the hostel they played The Big Lebowski which Scott, being The Dude, was loving. After the film we went out to a bar we'd heard of called Zeppelin's. They had stacks of vinyl, turntables and were playing some quality tunes, but then we realised they were playing it all off MP3. How pointless.

Said bye to Scott the next day and hopped on a bus up north to Siam Reap and Angor Wat. Phnom Penh was big, noisy and polluted but I loved it.

Mini Angkor Wat at the palace in Phnom Penh