Ho Chi Minh City

We left a rainy Phnom Penh early in the morning on a bus bound for Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. The trip was pretty dull and about as uncomfortable as usual. The border was no problem but did take about 2 hours of waiting. Fortunately for us, the bus stopped pretty much right outside our hotel.

We’d arrived late so we had some ‘Pho’ (beef noodle soup) and retired. Next day we took a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels. This was a secret network of tunnels the Viet Cong used to use in the American War – right on the doorstep of Saigon. We saw how they lived in the tunnels and the (vicious) traps they used. After going through one of the tunnels (enlarged for tourists) that was enough to give anyone claustrophobia, I took the opportunity to blast off a few rounds from a war-era AK47. An interesting day out.

  

Next day, we went to find the water park that one of my friends had recommended. It was pretty awesome fun and was only £3! After that we decided to take a look at the theme park next door – which was completely deserted! We had a ride on one of the roller coasters, visited a random ice sculpture exhibition and went on a slightly bizarre boat ride with weird stuffed animals jumping out – Ele was terrified!

  

On our final day, having avoided so far seeing much of the city, we went on a bit of a sightseeing tour. First we had an interesting tour around Reunification Palace that was formerly the President of South Vietnam’s house. Then, after a wonder around town, we went to the War Remnants museum which has a pretty cool collection of American tanks and aircraft – but some rather uncomfortable exhibits inside.

  

We then visited the Jade Pagoda and finished off our visit here with a drink at the top of the Sheraton Hotel.

  

Photos are here

Phnom Penh

We left Siem Riep in the morning just as it started chucking it down. Fortunately the weather was a better when we arrived in Phnom Penh after an uneventful bus journey. Arriving, I was struck at how underdeveloped it is for a capital city. We headed out to take a look at Wat Phnom and watched some monkeys hanging around in the trees nearby.

  

You are constantly reminded of how poor the country is when you are walking around. You are approached by beggars and book sellers, often children and amputees, who are very persistent. We ended up buying quite a few books, but I’m not sure that the money actually helps the people directly.

The tuk tuk drivers are also trying to take you to the Killing Fields and S21, but we felt uncomfortable with the prospect of going there. We gave a donation to CamKids instead of visiting as we thought our money would be better used to help with problems now.

Anyway, next day we went around a few of the sights in town; The National Museum which houses a huge collection of Khmer artifacts, and The Royal Palace.

  

On our final day, we signed up to a Cambodia Cooking class which was really good. In the morning, we had a tour of the market and then we learned to cook spring rolls and Amok which is a steamed fish curry. We then learned banana blossom salad and sweet sticky rice. The day was great fun and our dishes were really tasty. We’re looking forward to trying them out at home.

  

Photos are here.

Temples of Angkor

We took a bus from Bangkok at about 8am and arrived to the border with Cambodia at midday. We managed to get across without too much hassle and got in a cab for the 3 hour ride to Siem Reap. We arrived at about 6pm so we went and got some food and then had an early night.

We hired a tuk tuk driver for 3 days for $50 to take us around the temples of Angkor. I was amazed at the scale and sheer number of temples and palaces.

On Day 1, we bypassed Angkor Wat and headed straight to Angkor Thom – this is the largest of the Khmer cities and contains several temples. We looked around the Bayon, the Baphuon, the Terrace of Elephants, the Royal Palace, the Terrace of the Leper King and the Kleangs.

  

After this, we saw Ta Keo and Ta Phrom – which is where the Tomb Raider film was shot. And it is straight out of Tomb Raider, with its crumbling walls and trees growing over it.

  

After these, we stopped for a visit to Banteay Kdai and headed back to Siem Reap.

 

Day 2, we had a stupidly early start at 4.00am so we could get to Angkor Wat for sunrise. Unfortunately it was a bit cloudy and it was incredibly busy. I actually got some better photos later on at about 7.30am. Anyway, the palace is incredible and we enjoyed looking around.

  

After Angkor Wat, we went on a large loop and saw Preah Khan, Neak Phean, Ta Som  East Mebon and Pre Rup. We even managed to get an unofficial guide around Preah Khan who told us all about the reliefs and statues.

  

We were back in Siem Reap by 12 so we had some lunch of Lok Lak. But we were so tired after our early start, we went back to bed for the afternoon. Then we headed out into Pub Street for some dinner and $0.50 beers.

On our final day, we headed about 30km out. This was pretty interesting as we got to see a little of rural Cambodia on the way. After a faceful of flies and dust on the tuk tuk, we arrived at Banteay Srei. This is quite a small temple, but because of the stone used, the carvings havn’t eroded much.

   

On the way back we stopped at Banteay Samre. We ended the day in Siem Reap with a fish foot massage!

 

Bangkok

We got our final ferry from Koh Tao, followed by a breif 6 hour bus to Bangkok. We were dropped off in the center of bangkok with no idea where our hotel was. Thanks to a very helpful taxi driver who charged us way over the odds, after about half an hour we were at our hotel. We were there when there were the ‘red shirt’ protests against the government (look it up on the news) and we had to drive right through the middle of it!

It was good to be back in a city for once – but the area by us was a bit seedy. Our first day we took a taxi to the Grand Palace. I had to borrow some trousers to be allowed to look around. The buildings were pretty impressive and were covered in decorations of gold and jewels.

   

After this, we had a look around the museum there of decorations and coins which I enjoyed. Next we went to Wat Pho to see the big reclining buddha.

  

We got a ferry ticket the next day, and stopped and the very busy china town for lunch. Next we stopped at Wat Arun which we had fun exploring although the stairs were very steep! We also shopped around Koh San Road, full of T shirt stalls!

   

We didn’t stay long here as we will be back in a month after visiting the rest of SE Asia. Next stop is Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Photos are here

Southern Thailand

It seems that travelling makes me lazy – so much so that I have missed blogging about where we’ve been in Thailand for weeks. So I’ve decided to roll our island hopping into the one post…

Phuket

We opted to fly from KL to Phuket. We arrived quite late, and took a minibus to Koran beach where we were staying. The beach was packed with parasols and sun loungers and people offering to do massages. The sea was quite choppy! We also walked to the next beach along, Kata, which had much calmer waters, so we swam here to cool off! Phuket had a lot of tourists, mainly from Scandinavia for some reason! We really enjoyed our first tastes of authentic Thai food!

  

 

Koh Phi Phi

We got the ferry from Phuket to Koh Phi Phi, which was packed! We arrived to the Island, and had someone meet us from our hotel to carry our bags in a cart as there are no roads, just streets full of people walking or on bicycle.

The beach here is beautiful, a cove surrounded with limestone cliffs, and the water is clear, warm and you can go out for ages and its still shallow.

We discovered the danger of buckets here too- a plastic bucket filled with either vodka or whisky and topped up with coke and red bull!

  

We walked up to the view point, which was exhausting and hot, but well worth it for the stunning views of the sun setting.

We had a day trip to Koh Phi Phi Ley, which has Maya Bay, where the film “The Beach” was filmed. We took a longtail boat over which was a bit choppy at times, we saw several beaches and lagoons that we swam in, then spent some time on Maya Bay which was really pretty with white sands and surrounded by cliffs.

  

 

Krabi

We got the ferry to the mainland for the first time, and we stayed in Krabi Town. There was an amazing night market where we ate for very little money. We got a long tail boat to a nearby beach, Haad Rai Lai, which felt like it was an Island. Here again the beach was beautiful. We explored the area, which had lots of caves, including the princess caves, where fisherman leave interesting shaped offerings.

  

 

Koh Samui

Our next stop was Koh Samui which was a couple of hours by ferry away from Krabi. Here we mostly just relaxed at the beach. We went on a tour of the island and saw the Big Buddha and some other temples (including one with a mummifed monk wearing sunglasses) as well as some slightly objectionable rocks named ‘Grandfather’ and ‘Grandmother’.

   

Koh Phanang

We started our first night in Koh Phanang at Haad Rin which is home of the Full Moon party. Although there wasn’t a notable phase of the moon while we were there, we headed down to the beach and had way too many buckets.

   

After staying in Haad Rin for a couple of days, we took a taxi boat round the headland to Haad Yuan. This was probably the worst boat journey in the world – the sea was really rough and the boat crew too scurrilous for words. We nearly capsized on a couple of occasions! I was glad to reach land but it turns out that the boat had dropped us off on a beach further on, so we had to hike with our full packs over the cliffs!

We found a place to stay in a little bungalow perched on the cliffs – and basically spend 3 days between the beach and the restaurant eating some excellent food. The crowd was a bit hippy, though – I’ve never seen so many fisherman pants in one place!

   

Koh Tao

Our final island on our ticket was Koh Tao (Turtle Island) – we only spend one day here and there wasn’t really a lot to do – I heard it’s good for diving, though.

 

Next stop, Bangkok. Photos on Picasa