Joe & Rachel, somewhere around the world

Bam? It’s called Cillit Bang you Australian weirdo’s! I guess it’s just like Vincent in Pulp Fiction said: “It's the little differences. A lotta the same sh*t we got here, they got there, but there they're a little different.” And no I didn’t go in to Burger King either…well you can’t anyway because it’s called Hungry Jacks here.

So I’ll carry on where I left off, where we found ourselves at Brisbane airport freezing our asses off in 20 degree heat. I guess 20 isn’t that cold, but it’s a drop of 16 degrees from what we had been used to for the last 4 months. To be honest I was just relieved to be in a country where you don’t need to use two small pieces of wood to eat your dinner. Honestly, I think chopsticks must be Asia’s big practical joke on the rest of the world. Come on people, cutlery was invented way back in the 11th Century, you can’t tell me it hasn’t reached Vietnam yet! Anyway, Brisbane is a lovely city, it has a bit of a little London feel. Just like home it has a South Bank where the art galleries, museum and theatre is, plus they even have a mini London Eye, which is probably called the Brisbane Eye as that would make more sense. We took a trip on the river taxi (like the one at home) to the Suburbs then trekked 3 miles across a University campus just to eat some mediocre Fish ‘n’ Chips (the chips are rubbish here) and then rode the ferry back in to town again. As we always do we looked at paintings and skeletons and other things you find in galleries and museums, we drank beer and ate food, we browsed shops and walked around quite a bit. The highlight for me was a visit to the XXXX brewery, a beer so crap even Fosters outsold it in the UK. To be fair it’s a lot better beer than Fosters, but it’s not about the taste anyway, it’s all about the yeast oxidation. There’s just something so exciting about the fermentation process that can’t be put in to words…plus you got free beer.

After a few days we caught the Greyhound bus up to the small seaside town of Noosa. The beach looked good, although we only stood on it for about 30seconds to take a photo. But we didn’t stop to lie on a beach anyway, we were here for a trip to the Erwin Estate, otherwise known as the Australian Zoo. It’s pretty average, especially when compared to Singapore Zoo, but we touched a Koala, watched the overrated Croc show in the ‘Crocoseum’ and debated the age old question, do you stroke or pat a Kangaroo? After a quick stare at the Tigers we headed back to Noosa and the next day ‘Greyhounded’ it up to Hervey Bay.

We stopped at Hervey Bay for the same reason as most travellers do, and that’s for a trip to Fraser Island. But first we headed for the local airport for a flight by Tonka toy to the remote Lady Elliot Island. It’s right on the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef and is so small it’s pretty much just a runway with a few huts on the side. It’s a serious budget buster, but if you’re going to bust it I can’t imagine a better place to do so, this is one of the highlights of the trip. We snorkelled with many fish and watched huge Loggerhead Turtles and Manta Rays swimming by, plus we ate the best all-you-can-eat roast dinner, which was included in the price (I ate 15 roast potatoes to make up for the cost, that‘ll learn ‘em).

After a couple of days we jumped back on the plane to Hervey bay, which was bum clenchingly piloted by a 12 year old boy, who we mistook for a nerdy plane spotter before we saw him jump in the front and start the engine.
Back at Hervey Bay there was no time to rest as we took a day trip over to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. We saw Humpback Whales breeching in the sea while driving down the amazing 75 mile beach (which is a registered highway and where you have to give way to aeroplanes landing and taking off), we swam in the very cold but very beautiful lake McKenzie and didn‘t feel the even the slightest bit tempted to pat the wild Dingo‘s sniffing around for scraps of food.

After another Greyhound bus ride back to Brisbane and a few days watching TV in a hostel, we bought our tickets to Darwin. The flight was pretty uneventful although I think the Cabin Staff were conducting a secret experiment to see how much electricity they could produce using 200 statically charged blankets and a plane full of unsuspecting passengers. After eating our pack lunch we spent the next 4 and a bit hours watching the Flight Path Channel. Now it sounds pretty boring when you try and describe it out of context, but up there it becomes the most compelling thing seen on a TV screen since the 1986 Christmas episode of Eastenders when Den handed Angie the divorce papers. You’re on edge of your seat as the outside temperature drops from -50 to -51 degrees, or as the plane edges itself a mm closer to the final destination. Although it’s a bit of a farce really as the plane on the map is about the size of Tasmania, and if that was true the fortunate passengers at the front would be supping a cappuccino in Darwin Airport while the poor suckers at the back would still be stuck flying somewhere over the Great Sandy Desert. Anyway, we disembarked the plane and found ourselves in Darwin, the largest town in the Northern Territory, population 115,000. And that’s all I can be bothered to talk about for now, but tune in soon for the one about two Brits, a campervan and the long drive down to Perth.

Here are the photo’s if you haven‘t seen them already:
http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii40/rachelandjoseph/

Bye.

Joe n Rachel.x.x.x.

So here we are in Malaysia and our first stop Georgetown on Penang Island with its Chinese, Islam, Indian and Malay influences it’s the proverbial cultural melting pot. We turned up at a strange place, in the dark, without anywhere to stay…again. The first couple of hotel’s were full and as it was getting late we made the budget busting decision to stay at the Malaysia Hotel. Unfortunately our conversion skills weren’t up to scratch and we paid way more that we thought we did. But the room had a great view and with a complimentary newspaper delivered to your door everyday, plus a bathroom that actually had a bath in it, the price was easily forgotten…who says this backpacking lark is difficult! A free buffet breakfast was also a bonus, so I made up for the price of the room by eating 8 fried eggs a day, that’ll learn ‘em. Georgetown is a lovely place, with some interesting history and great food. We had a wander around Fort Cornwallis, the oldest British settlement in Malaysia and on the way passed a very white St Georges Anglican church, the oldest church in SE Asia. We also popped our heads in to some smokey Chinese temples, Islamic Mosques and down a very loud Little India. There were some beautifully restored buildings too, including the 19th Century Baba-Nonya ‘Penang Peranakan’ Mansion, where only the night before the local Mafia could be found smoking opium…but you didn’t hear that from me, right?

We took a day trip out by bus to see Kek Lok Si Temple with its big Buddha and some seriously cramped turtles (see the photo), then rode the funicular 121 metres up Penang Hill pointed out our hotel in the distance and came back down again. We also had our first taste of liquid gold, 5 pounds for a pint dammit! Beer intake was dramatically decreasing from here on in.

Kuala Lumpur was our next stop and boy we thought we paid a lot for a room in Georgetown. For a few more quid a night we bagged ourselves a dingy windowless box in squat of a hotel with only ESPN as a plus point. KL is a great city. We shot up 41 floors in 40 seconds of the Petronas Towers, which according to my reliable source tells me are 266 times my height. We looked out the window, pointed out our hotel and came back down again. Then we went over to the Aquarium with a 90 meter underwater tunnel and touched-up some starfish.

Day two took us to the Lake Gardens, which not only has the biggest covered walk-through aviary in the world, but also the largest butterfly garden. On the long walk back to town we dropped by the Masjid Negara mosque, where we dressed up like Emperor Palpatine from Starwars to have a look inside. We had a lovely chat with a guide and he gave us a book called, ‘20 most common questions about Islam’. Here’s a paragraph on why Pork is forbidden: ‘The pig is the most shameless animal on earth. It is the only animal that invites its friends to have sex with its mate. In America, most people consume pork. Many times after dance parties, they have swapping of wives, i.e many say “you sleep with my wife and I will sleep with your wife”. could it be that eating pork promotes pig culture?’ Interesting stuff. We spent our evenings in KL drinking Carlsberg very slowly and pondering the logistics of building a beer pipeline from Vietnam to Malaysia. This time next year we‘ll be millionaires, etc etc.

After a few days we took a bus to Jerantut, then a long boat down stream to Kuala Tahan. The town is nothing to write home about, but the location is top class, right in the heart of Taman Negara, the oldest rainforest in the world. It was like the land that time forgot, don’t you think there’s something so beautifully medieval about having to pay the boatman 2 Ringitts to cross the river? Our first activity was a guided jungle night walk where we annoyed some scorpions by poking them with a big stick and became very friendly with more Leeches than you could shake a bloody leg at. The next day we wobbled across a canopy walkway between huge Mersawa Keruing and Keledan trees 40 metres above ground and had a climb up Bukit Teresik hill to point at our hotel and climb back down again. Sadly we didn’t spot the elusive tigers, but did see some deer and Civets at a salt lick, wild pigs, monkeys, snakes, Sea Eagles, spiders, Monitor Lizards, Water Buffallo, Squirrels, huge ants and had fruit bats try and molest me in a pitch black cave. We had a great time and even stumbled into an Orang Asli minority tribe village, where we paused for an awkward few seconds before stumbling back out again. After two days of trekking in the humidity and sweat we thought it was time to move on.

Next up came a 12hr scenic train ride through the jungle to the Islamic north eastern city of Kota Bharu.
We turned up in the dark as usual, but this time we learnt from our mistakes and had booked our accommodation in advance. Unfortunately there were two hotels with exactly the same name and the taxi driver took us to the wrong one! Such is life. This hotel was very average and the room was only half carpeted! Not in a cool urban chic bare floorboard kind of way, more of a ‘bugger, we’ve just ran out of carpet…lets leave it and hope they don’t notice’ kind of way.

We took a few days to have a look around the town and people watch. Bank Kerapu museum has a nice collection of photo’s from the Japanese occupation in WWII and another had a cool weapons gallery. We ate some good Satay from a hawker stall and feeling cocky ordered some Roti in a café thinking we were getting something mildly exotic, but which turned out to be a slice of Kingsmill with some butter on. Sadly when Pizza Hut is a town’s gourmet highlight you know you’re in trouble and have a look at the photo from the market and see why we decided chicken would be off the menu here. It’s interesting to experience a truly Islamic town, although it loses brownie points because I lost my Vietnam hat. I dropped it walking down the street and some bum must of picked it up…I loved that hat. We quickly got bored here so wanted to move on down the coast. Unfortunately it was Labour day (seriously this place has more public holidays than public work days), which meant all the buses out of town were fully booked for the next four days. We panicked a bit thinking we were going to have to spend all that time here, so just for the sake of our sanity we walked in to the bus depot and booked any bus we could get that had two available seats going south…we were off to Kuala Terengganu at 4am the next day.

As soon as we arrived in town we walked around all the bus company windows (there was a surprisingly large amount) to see if any had buses going on to Cherating down the coast, but everything was fully booked for the next two days. This place gets a big raspberry blowing thumbs down for being so bloody dull. There is just nothing to do, it‘s like going on holiday to Reading. It’s the sort of place that makes you want to just lie down on the pavement and slowly decompose. Homer Simspon once said, “No beer and no TV makes Homer go crazy” and we all laughed didn’t we? Well we ain’t laughing anymore. The only plus point was how cheap our room was, I think we paid 5 pounds per night for an en-suit with air-conditioning and with wall to wall carpets! Food choice was limited here and we had to resort to eating McDonalds for dinner. What is it about McDonalds, you stuff your face with burgers and fries, but afterwards you’re left feeling so empty inside? I did read an interesting article in a newspaper though. Apparently they might bring in a law forcing all women under the age of 21 to have a permission letter from their employer or a family member to travel abroad! Gordon Brown could learn a thing or two from these guys, or maybe not. Anyway, after two lonnnnnng days we were on a bus, destination Cherating.

I think we loved and hated this place in equal measure. The town is shabby and dirty, as is the beach, which is nothing to write home about. There is nowhere decent to eat and there is nothing to do in the evening. What made up for this was the resort we stayed in and the very lovely owners who upgraded us for free. Even better though was that we were the only guests! We spent the whole week playing around in the pool and being entertained by the sling-shot carrying staff having a poolside running battle with a troop of monkeys. At one point 5 monkeys ran passed us being chased off by an old woman wildly swinging at them with a broom, then 10 seconds later they all came back running the other way, but this time about 20 monkeys were chasing the screaming old woman back in to the laundry room.

When we weren’t in the pool we were watching soaps on Tv, some with English subtitles some without, it didn’t make much difference they were all crap. This was only interrupted with the call to prayer. It’s nice listening to it on Tv and hearing it drift over the cities from the local mosque. All the hotel rooms have a little arrow stuck on the ceiling pointing the way to Mecca so you can pray…well done Rachel for working that one out, I just thought they were emergency exit signs. To cap it all off, on the last day we saw 6 wild hornbills, the coolest looking bird in the world, hanging around in the trees outside our bungalow. We timed the trip to perfection as the day we left the resort was fully booked for the weekend. Feeling nice and relaxed we picked up a taxi and Third Gear Freddy took us to Kuantan for a bus to Melacca. Driving through one small undescript town I saw a huge 6ft sign on a café wall stating “we sell corn in a cup!”. Now who exactly is that targeted at? I guess eating corn straight off the cob is just too uncouth for some people.

Melacca is one of our favourite places so far. Great people, loads of character in a beautiful China Town and plenty of bars which have 4 hour long happy hours. They have a great evening market where they set up a karaoke stage and you can sit and watch locals butcher their favourite pop tunes all night long. We went to the usual tourists sights and pulled our best sea faring pose outside a reconstruction of the Portuguese ship 'Flora De La Mar'. We spent our first night in a restored Chinese shop house then the rest of the nights in a brand new hostel down the road. This place was so new the paint hadn’t even dried in our room and we had to sleep with the window open for fear of poisoning ourselves with paint fumes.

Capitol Satay Cafe wins the award for most interesting evening’s dinner we‘ve had so far. Health and safety would probably have a field day if this place was back home. You have a big fat gas cylinder under your table with a pot of bubbling satay sauce sat on top, in which you cook the meat and tofu skewers you’ve picked out of the fridge. If you’ve ever had the urge to cook a pigs ear in Satay Sauce, head over here…you can’t do that at Gordon Ramseys!

We moved along by bus to Singapore, an island, country and city all-in-one. On the bus I found my new stage name: Delerang Merekok. Now if that’s not an Oscar winners name I don’t know what is. It means ‘no smoking’ in Malaysian. The journey was great until we found out our bus driver had driven off and left us at the border crossing, which is something we hadn‘t really planed for. With the nearest cash point about an hours walk away things didn’t look too good for us. We decided our only option was to find a pointy stick then hang around for their afternoon service to come through and hijack it, so that’s what we did.

If you’re thinking of stopping over in Singapore, a word of warning, book your accommodation months before you get here and be prepared to spend big bucks. We tried looking weeks in advance and even then all the cheap rooms everywhere were gone. At one point it looked like our only choice was either sleeping in Raffles or on the street. Luckily just as I was starting to collect newspapers for us to sleep under we stumbled across a gem of a B&B called Lollypopcorn. Our first stop though was a cool flashpacker hostel in town, which was nice but a tad over our flimsy budget, so after a couple of nights we booked ourselves in to Lolllypopcorn for the rest of our stay. Although it has a ridiculous name it was a wicked place. Basically it’s just a flat in a huge block in an urban area of Singapore city called Ang Mo Kio. They have just 3 guest rooms, with the others being for the family who still live there, mum and dad in one room, one of the sisters in another and the maid, who sleeps in the broom cupboard! It’s a tight space, but very homely. From the flat we had a quick bus ride to the brilliant Singapore Zoo where you can get very, very close to the animals and the Night Safari next door, which has the same animals, but in the dark. The zoo has 85 scarily intelligent Baboons, who have realised that if they entertain us they will get thrown more bananas than they would do if they just sat there begging for them. So they’ve taught themselves to do handstands and summersaults, cartwheels and star jumps and a load of other things to catch the attention of the banana wielding tourists.

Back in town we went to some Galleries and Museums, like the Asian Civilisation Museum, which I think is one of the best museums in the world. We also dragged our heels around the Financial District and the Quays, which reminded us very much of Canary Wharf…we even sat outside a mock Victorian pub and had a pint of Speckled Hen. We also did the obligatory waltz down Orchard Road to look in all the shops and buy some clothes. One thing about Singapore is how unbelievably clean it all is. You expect it to be clean, because that’s what you’ve been told, but it’s still pretty impressive. Although in a city where they’ve banned Chewing Gum, 5 minutes after turning up Rachel still manages to tread in some. This didn’t really surprise us too much though as she’s done that in every other country so far, I guess it’s now become a tradition. On our last day we went down to the Orchard Road and to celebrate sticking to our 4 month budget we needlessly blew a huge amount of money on a laptop and that’s what I am writing this on now.

The Southeast Asian leg was over as we boarded a plane heading for Brisbane. One thing that puzzled me on the flight was why they gave us a plastic knife but a metal fork with our dinner?!? That’ll foil any terrorist hijack attempt don’t you think?…just as long as they don’t realise you can still stab pretty good with a fork.

On a side note, Australian passport control are brilliant, they even wash your shoe’s for you! I think it’s something to do with bringing foreign flora in to the country and effecting the fragile eco system, but as a bonus they do make them look nice and shinny. Just don’t say that out to them because I don’t think they like doing it very much. We have been in Australia for ages now. We’ve walked on the largest sand island, snorkelled on the great barrier reef and driven from Darwin all the way down to Perth, but I‘ll leave all those adventures for the next blog entry.

Photo’s at:
http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii40/rachelandjoseph/

See you all soon.

Your sincerely,

Joe n Rachel.xx

Sawatdee Krab! Here lies the Thailand blog. March-April 2008.

Well, what can you say about Bangkok that hasn't been written before? Nothing, it's a steaming pile of poo. Actually that’s a bit harsh, I’ll try again…..

We dropped our bags in a hotel right on the Koh San Road, which probably would not have been our first choice if we’d planned ahead, but it was dark, everywhere was fully booked and we didn’t know where the hell we were. Plus the glow of neon beckoned us in, a bit like a saggy old prostitute would to a drunk outside a Soho strip joint…you can’t come all this way and not visit the Koh San! We popped down to Chinatown, but it was nothing special, just a market selling tat you would never want to buy unless you had to. The Grand Palace and the Temple of Doom, or whatever it was called was passable, but we’ve spent the last two months looking at temples, pagodas and wats all of varying degrees of decoration, grandeur, age and repair. By this point we just wanted to sit down in the shade and have a cold drink.

The newer part of town around Siam Square is all very Cosmo. Rachel had her hair cut at a hip ‘n’ happenin’ salon all the cool Thai kids seem to go and it cost a reasonable 8 pounds, so you can’t argue with that. We also popped in and played a bit of Ten pin bowling and succumbed to the fact that we are both pretty rubbish at it. So, bang goes my idea of hustling in the bowling dens of America when we’re skint. I'll just have to sell a kidney to some poor Latino in downtown LA who hasn't got health insurance.

We also liked travelling on their River Taxi, Sky train and Metro. The Metro carriages are so well air conditioned that condensation drips off the hand rails and it’s like sitting in a fridge. With it being 38degrees outside you could happily ride around all day. The only way they could make the journey more enjoyable would be to serve beer, I’ve put it in the suggestion box so fingers crossed.

The hassling in Bangkok gets a bit too much though. It‘s not just shouting out from stalls hawking for business or passengers for their Tuk Tuk's or Moto’s like in Cambodia or Vietnam, which although annoying at times is quite easy to ignore. These guys have taken it to another level. They stop you in the street and tell blatant lies, trying to con trusting tourists into either a. getting an overpriced taxi just down the road or b. taking you to a crappy gem store where they can get commission from the owners. "Where are you going?…oh that shopping centre doesn't open until (checks his watch) 3pm, it's a Buddhist holiday!" What?!?!?!? Another one is telling you the temple you want to see is closed because the queen died two weeks ago, or they won’t let you in dressed like that so better to go this way. We got stopped by three different people within 100 yards trying that…one even stood outside the gates to the temple where you could clearly see people walking in to the bloody thing! It's just so boring to have to put up with. So, if you ever come here remember one thing…Stranger Danger!

After faffing around in Bangkok we decided to jump an overnight train and go up to Chiang Mai in the north. So we went to the station, bought two ‘cockroach class’ tickets and sat out our last day in a Bangkok bar with our eyes closed.

Chiang Mai was like a breath of fresh air...not in the literal sense as the town sits in a valley so during the hot, dry months smog originating from forest fires and minority tribes slashing and burning their land is trapped and hangs over the town like a thick hazy blanket. It’s a lovely town though and much more affordable than Bangkok, a very agreeable $10 a night room doesn't lie.

The main reason why most travellers come up here is for trekking. You can’t get from your bed to the bathroom to take a piss without passing a guide trying to sell you a tour through the jungle. For us the choice was so overwhelming reverse logic dictated that we didn’t do any of them. So that’s what we did. Instead we decided to go to an elephant sanctuary, ride an ATV quad bike, go to a Thai cookery school and hire out a moped to ride around town like the cool kids. We definitely wanted to see some Asian elephant’s while we were here, but we had heard that they are mistreated and overworked on some tours, so we went to the Elephant nature foundation (www.elephantnaturefoudation.org) instead. It does exactly what is says on the tin: it’s a sanctuary for elephants, saved from maltreatment in villages and from logging companies etc. Its been on the Discovery Channel among other things. The photos speak for themselves so I won’t go on about it, but I will say it’s an amazing place and although quite expensive for SE Asia standards, worth every penny. We fed the elephants and gave them a bath in the river…Yes it is a bit girlie I know, but who cares. Giving a four ton elephant a back scrub with a broom is one of those moments that makes you sit up and realise you really are a million miles away from everyday life back home…unless washing elephants is your job back home that is, then it would be exactly like being at home and that would be rubbish. Lek, the founder of the sanctuary, then turned up with a newspaper reporter dude and gave us a little talk about the place. Rachel also made friends with a baby elephant and received a few elephant kisses. He even stole a hat off a guys head and gave it to her as a preset. At one point I thought he was going to throw her on his back and run off like King Kong in to the sunset. Unfortunately he didn‘t……I mean fortunately he didn’t…..that was spell check’s fault, dammit. Definitely another highlight of the trip so far.

On the second day we booked ourselves in for a Thai cookery course at the cleverly named ‘Thai farm cooking school’. Rachel made spring rolls, we ground our own paste to make green and red curries, and stir fried some other Thai meals, which I can’t remember the name of. I won’t say the dishes I cooked were good because ‘good‘ can’t describe the complexity of flavours that infuse on the taste buds from my curries. Just wait until we get home and I will amaze and confound you. We cooked our food and ate it that day.

On the Third day we hired out a 125cc moped, dressed up in our best Mod gear and had a fun ride up a hill overlooking the town. We then stopped at another temple and a minority Karen village...I say minority village but it was as authentic as those you find at Epcot in Disney World. We also popped in to a Bug Museum which is owned by a lovely and slightly eccentric old Thai man, who is one of the leading authorities on all things Mosquito. He has personally discovered many different varieties over the years and the museum had an assortment of bugs and butterflies all nailed on the walls or in glass cases for you to look at. He had loads of facts and figures too: Did you know that some species are vegetarian and others are actually helpful to humans by eating the larvae of the harmful mosquitoes that carry dengue fever and malaria?. If he’s around he will talk to you until you slip out the back door when he’s not looking...or into a coma, which ever comes first.

On our last day we went on a half day ATV tour. Pretty average for an off-road tour and pretty expensive, but it was a change from what we have done before. In the early evening we wandered around the Sunday market, which was fantastic. They shut off a long street to traffic and it seems like the whole town comes out and sets up a stall. Good food and drink and just a good atmosphere. If you ever head up to Chang Mai plan in some time to wander through the Market, in our humble opinion it’s the best in Thailand.

Heading back to Bangkok we were forced to get an overnight bus because they had cancelled most of the trains (on the news they said they had to pull them out of service to be fumigated as they were all infested with bedbugs and cockroaches…which didn’t really surprise us). We bought a Government 1st class ticket, not really knowing what to expect, particularly when we upgraded ourselves to super duper VIP’s and the woman behind the counter gave us ten tickets each, all written unsurprisingly in Thai. Happily, not only was the bus faster than the train, it was comfier, cheaper and not infested with cockroaches…although we never found out what all those tickets were for.

Back in Bangkok we checked in to a hotel not far from the Ko San Road and that night we had a nice surprise, hundreds of bedbugs. There where so many we had a fat Gecko sat on the pillow gobbling them all up like it was Gecko Christmas….actually thinking about it that wasn’t really nice nor much of a surprise, with this being a sh*tty Bangkok hotel...ah well. We decided to head for the Andaman islands as soon as possible.

Getting from Bangkok to the islands seemed at first like it was going to be a ball-ache of a journey. We heard stories about Bangkok travel agencies being crooks and on the bus down they would rifle through your bags and steal your pants. After careful consideration weighing up our other options and being way too lazy to make our on way down, we decided to risk it. But, you know what, after all our reservations we had no problem getting to Koh Tao bang on time and in possession of all our pants, so you can’t say fairer than that.

Koh Tao is a beauty of an island. Probably the main diving hub in Thailand, but there are loads of quiet beaches that are pretty much deserted with not a wind break in sight, a shock to us being used to Bournemouth on a Bank Holiday. We stayed at the quiet end of Ao Chalok Ban Kao beach in a hut on the hill overlooking the sea. It had it’s own resident spider, which we christened ‘Freddy’ after that song by the Who….well I thought it was a Who song then realized it’s ‘Boris the Spider’ not Freddy…ah well, stupid brain. Not unlike Chang Mai where we didn’t trek, we didn’t dive in Koh Tao either. Instead we spent our time snorkelling with the fishes in Shark Bay during the day and sipping cocktails watching far away thunderstorms by night. The best bit was probably stepping of the beach in to 2 feet of water and having a small black tip reef shark brush past our legs. Oh and if you go, there is a wicked place called Chopsticks, near where the ferry drops you off, that does Chinese food just like it is back home.

Four days later we packed our bags again, said goodbye to Freddy and hop skipped and jumped on to a ferry to Koh Phangan. A larger and more popular island than Koh Tao and home of the Full Moon Party (where apparently up to 40,000 people have been known to parrrt-aaay the night away on a beach). Unfortunately we got there and there wasn't a full moon in sight, which was a shame. We could of rocked out at the half moon party, but what’t the point? Full moon or nothing, is my mantra. So instead we headed up to the quietest beach at the opposite end of the island.

We stayed in a resort on Hat Chom beach managed by a lovely lady with the lovely name of Bovi. Only pick-ups can navigate up and down the crappy roads at this end of the island, plus they also only have electricity between 5pm-8am. Our hut was massive, with hammocks on the balcony and sat right on the beach front. The weather was great, the water was clear and warm, you could snorkel right off the beach, the food was tasty (the restaurant served the best Massaman curry I’ve ever had) and the beer was cold. Looking back we should of stayed here for four weeks instead of four days.

You couldn’t question Bovi’s commitment to the good health of the Island either. While giving us some advice about where to stay in other parts of Thailand she excused herself and ran fully clothed in to the sea, where she swam over and confronted two Thai guys in a small boat who were hanging around the reef. After a few minutes of arguing they skulked around the corner and Bovi came back dripping wet but carried on like nothing had happened. Apparently the guys were farming for sea cucumbers (big fat worm-like things that roll around on the sea bed cleaning the sand, which in turn keeps the reef healthy). They sell them to the Chinese, who stick them in tins and sell them to Beijingers as a tasty nutritious meal.

One night the whole resort shut down and everyone went to see some Muay Thai boxing. One of the German guys staying at the resort was fighting, so to show support all the staff and guests jumped in to the back of a couple of pick-up’s to go and watch him. It’s a popular sport here and quite a few foreigners come over, train for a few weeks and then fight a local Muay Thai boxer if they so wish. Now I’ve never been to a Muay Thai fight before and still don’t really know much about the sport, but I’m going to give it a go and describe it to you as best I can. To a few some of my observations are very uneducated and possibly slightly insulting to an ancient, spiritual and graceful martial art ……for that I humbly apologise, honestly I’m not worth it.

There was six fights on this card, each of which consisted of five 3 minute rounds. It was a small venue, with the fighters on one side of the ring getting their pre-fight massages and on the other three sides sat or stood the crowd getting pissed on bottles of Singha and eating popcorn. There were also a few ‘VIP’ plastic chairs and fold-out tables set up at ringside if you needed somewhere to lay down your pizza.

Before it all got underway pop music blared out over the tannoy. How in God’s name can they expect the contenders to psych themselves up for a fight when they have to listen to ‘One Love’ by Blue I don‘t know. They should be playing survivors ‘eye of the tiger‘.

The fighters walk into the ring wearing the obligatory dressing gown and what uncannily looks like, what I can only describe as, a stringless tennis racquet on their heads. Before the fight starts they pay homage to their teacher by performing a little dance in the ring. These got more extravagant as each fight passed, and for a minute I thought we were watching American TV show ‘So you think you can dance’ instead of a brutal martial art. I swear one guy was actually doing the hand jive!…maybe his coach was a Grease fan?

As the fights start they play some cool Indian stylee Thai music with which the fighters sway their head's in time to, just like snake charmers hypnotising their opponents. At times the fights seemed a little sloth like, with the competitors moping around the ring like sulky teenagers between flurries of kicks and punches. They did play up to the crowd though. One fighter gave a WWF Hacksaw Jim Duggan stylee “hayoooooh” salute and the crowd responded back, it was bloody brilliant...or you would think so too if you are my age reminiscing about watching wrestling on TV when you were younger. After the first round they went to their respective corners, and the trainers brought out huge paella dishes to catch the water and sweat dripping off the fighters, which they then sold to a Tapas restaurant in Phuket. After a quick mop of the brow the bell rung and they were all back up on their feet ready to go again. The best bit was probably when the referee, who was weirdly dressed like a postman, broke up clenching fighters with a few flying kicks of his own. I also liked it that the supporters really got in to the fights and any punch or kick that made contact got recognition. In what other sport would repeatedly kneeing someone up the bum not only get a huge cheer from the crowd, but a point from the judges?! After a few fights it was our guys turn. He was an older guy, who unfortunately couldn’t have look more German if he had parachuted in and goose stepped around the ring. After a wobbly start he kicked some arse and was the victor. Then we all cheered and went home happy.

Other than that we didn’t really see the rest of the island. We took a stroll down the road and saw trained monkey’s knocking coconuts out of the trees, but spent most of our time not doing much on the beach. After the four days we decided to pack our bags and head for Phuket on the other side of Thailand.

The ferry journey to the mainland was pretty dull, although there was a girl on board with an extraordinary large suitcase. Now a suitcase wouldn’t normally hold my scarily ever-decreasing attention span long enough for me to comment on it, but this was no ordinary suitcase. I’m not exaggerating by saying this was probably the biggest thing Thailand has seen since the dinosaurs. It was so big it had its own gravitational pull…I swear there were actually smaller Louis Vuitton bags orbiting it! The only reason I can fathom to have a bag that big is either to A: smuggle large quantities of drugs or B: to smuggle Eastern Europeans into France. It only just managed to fit down the corridor of the boat and when we disembarked the hobbit sized girl had to actually drop it and let it roll down the stairs because it was too big to control. What was that about!?! It’s called BACKpacking fo a reason dummy.

Sorry I went off on a tangent there, where was I? There’s not a lot to say about Phuket Town. It’s a pretty average place with no real sites of interest. I guess you would normally use it as a base to go off and explore the beaches and it’s probably the most cockroach infested town we’ve visited so far. It was a lovely hostel we stayed in though. They had DVD players in your room and a huge library of films to watch, plus free internet. We stayed a couple of nights before heading over to Ko Phi Phi Don by, you’ve guessed it, another bloody ferry.

On your way to Phi Phi Don you pass by the other island Phi Phi Ley, which looks just stunning. Sadly, on Don, we parked ourselves just outside the small port town, which is probably one of the most overrated places ever. I would suggest avoiding this place like the plague, if anyone was stupid enough to ask my opinion. It looks nice, but it’s over priced and over populated and the local’s aren’t that friendly either. During our short stay, we booked a half-day snorkelling trip around Koh Phi Phi Leh with a company that only takes out small groups at a time. The total opposite to one of the boats you see taking out 200+ people, who then spend the whole time kicking each other in the head with their flippers rather than seeing any fish. It ended up being a very small group as no one else booked on, so it was just us two and the guide! We saw the Viking cave with swift nests and snorkelled in areas where no one else was snorkelling. There were so many different fish, large and small. I don’t know what they were all called, but type ’colourful tropical fish’ in to Google and what comes up we probably swam with it. We also popped over and looked at Ao Maya beach, where ’The Beach’ was filmed. A quite frankly shit beach, spoilt by the hundreds of tourists crammed on it at any one time and all the speed boats flying around. The trip was all going great until I felt seasick, threw-up while still wearing a snorkel and nearly choked to death on my own vomit while floating in the sea. Unfortunately after that we had to cut the trip short, but it was fun while it lasted. It was coming to the start of the monsoon season so we saw some spectacular rainfall and lightening storms, but being tight on time (because we had to be back in Phuket for Songkran, Thai New year…yes another bloody one!) we got back on a ferry and headed for Koh Lanta.

Rachel pulled a muscle in the base of her back while picking up her bag on Phi Phi, which slowly got worse to the point where she couldn’t walk. We managed to make it to Koh Lanta and the pleasant Hat Khlong Dao beach, but after that it completely seized up and unfortunately she had to spend nearly all our time on Koh Lanta holed up in our chalet with no TV. Luckily the staff at the resort were unbelievably helpful and even brought Rachel’s dinner to her bed a few times! We popped in to a clinic and Dr Halitosis gave her a prescription of very strong painkillers, which help ease the pain a little. She did see our second wild snake of the trip though. A small Red and Black venomous one, which I nearly stood on, because even though it was curled up on the porch of our hut I didn’t see it…I could have been bitten and died! After the drama of staring death in the face for a second time in a week, we just sat out a few days and headed back to Phuket Town in time for the Water Festival. Songkran is just one big water fight with everyone walking the street with super soakers and buckets of water drenching each other. Probably the only time and place where after throwing a cold bucket of water over a stranger you are met with a huge grin and a thank you. For those couple of days just popping to the corner shop becomes a military operation if you wanted to stay dry.

Rachel’s back was slowly getting better, but we used it as a bit of an excuse and took advantage of the great DVD collection in the hostel, watching all the Indiana Jones films back to back, and living off 7/11 microwave pizza. We took a day trip by Songtaew (the local bus) over to Hat Karon beach. Nicer than I was expecting although slightly overpriced and full of Dutch and Swedes on package holidays and fat old Germans with their Thai ‘girlfriends’…Plus it rained.

After a lot of contemplating about what to do next we decided to jump on a bus and head straight for Malaysia. We had planned on going to Railey and Krabi but there was a climbing festival on so accommodation would have been scarce and expensive and although Thailand has some of the most amazing beaches we have ever seen, it was time to see some civilisation again.

To get to Malaysia we had to go through a town called Hat Yai. Being in the Southern end of Thailand it’s seen some Islamic separatist unrest in the past - bombings of the train station, arson and shootings, that sort of thing. Both the UK FCO and US Dept of State websites for Thailand advised that only necessary journeys should be taken through that area. But experienced, hardened explorers like us laugh in the face of danger, so we pooh-poohed their advice and ploughed southwards. We were in Hat Yai a death defying 2 minutes for a quick bus change, but sadly it all seemed quite normal…so we just smirked in the general direction of danger and moved on to the border. The border crossing was very simple and easy again and we were in Georgetown on Penang island before we knew it. Now it’s was time to pass the travel baton on to Malaysia.

We had a lovely time in Thailand and the biggest tip we could probably give anyone travelling here is; if you find an island or beach that you really love and feel at home, it’s probably best to stay there because the sand is not always whiter on the other side.

That’s all for now. Bye. Joe and Rachel.x

Page 2.

The biggest attraction for me in Kampong Cham, and the main reason why I wanted to visit, was the Bamboo Bridge. A bridge that's rebuilt by hand every year in the dry season to connect an island, home to Cham villages, and the mainland for the few months when the river is too low to row a boat across. Check out the photos but it’s a pretty cool bridge and impressively built. When we hired bikes and cycled across it Rachel was almost pushed off in to the water by a guy with a horse and cart coming the other way...which she wasn't too happy about and you can't blame her really because there would have been a pretty good chance of her falling to her death. That’s probably why, if you speak to her, the bridge isn’t one of her fondest memories of Kampong Cham.

On our first afternoon there we headed up two hills called ‘man’ and ‘woman’. On top of Man Hill there was a Wat, which the Khmer Rouge used as a prison and to kill people. There is a statue that the Rouge used to sharpen their knives on before they hacked people to death. We also fed bananas to some wild, but very passive monkeys, which was pretty cool (see the photo's) and climbed up a few hundred steps to another Wat on Woman Hill to have a look at the nice view and then climbed back down again. We then headed over to see some orphan kids (or former orphans) do some traditional dancing. Their teacher was a nice guy who also performed with them. He mostly played a woman's role, but as our amused driver Mr. Buth pointed out, "it's okay for him to do it, because he's gay!" Maybe he thought we would have been offended if he wasn’t gay and doing a woman’s dance, I don’t know, but we nodded in an approving way. We also visited a small pre-Angkorian temple. Mr. Buth snuck us in the back because there was a policeman at the entrance asking for payment to visit. Don’t think for one moment that we were being skin flints by not paying, it's actually free to visit the temple, the policeman just drives past on his bike and demands 'entrance' money from tourists. If there's one thing you can say about the Cambodian Police it's that they're pretty good at being bent.

On the second day we drove passed the Chili and Peanut farms and the Lotus flower fields. You can actually eat the peas which are in the pod of the lotus flower; they have a runner bean-like taste to them. We bought some scarves from a family in Prey Chung Kran weaving village. We saw them weave the scarves we bought, which was nice. Plus they were cheaper than in the market, another bonus! To cap our tour off we drove out all the way to Mha Leap pagoda complex (with a short detour to see a Rubber Plantation), which is one of the last remaining wooden pagodas in the country (the Rouge didn’t burn it because luckily they used it as a hospital). The Pagoda floor was covered in pigeon poop, which was nice to walk in, especially as you have to leave your shoes outside. We got there just as the local school had a lunch break so all the kids ran over to hang around us while we looked around. They posed for photo’s and enjoyed looking at themselves on the camera screen. They only left us alone when a guy with a horse and cart caught their attention and they all ran off trying to jump on the back of it. Then the school bell rung and they all went back in to class. Only one kid stayed outside and when we asked why he wasn’t going in with the rest of them we were told us that the kids are given a small amount of money each day by their parents to pay the teacher. Some days the kids use the money to buy some food so can’t give the teacher any money and therefore are not allowed in to the class rooms. Of course they can’t go home because there parents would find out, so they hang around outside the classrooms instead. Before we left we popped in to the village doctor’s surgery, where we had a lovely chat with the doctors and nurses, even though they only spoke French.

Mr. Buth, our Tuk Tuk guide, was heading over to Ireland soon to visit his friend, so while he drove us around he was asking us all sorts of questions about home, the schools, the money, the government, the monarchy and the history of the UK and Ireland. Obviously we were no real use to him and most of his questions were met with 'errr dunno' and we would then stare blankly at the sky and pick our noses. I hope he didn’t think we were idiots.
As soon as he found out we were heading up to Siem Reap the next day, he gave his friend (a fellow tuk tuker) a call to arrange for him to pick us up from the bus station.

On the way to Siem Reap the bus driver noticed one of the wheels wasn’t right and would need to be replaced. We pulled over and all the Cambodian men and me got off the bus to inspect it. After 5 minutes of looking, pointing, raising eyebrows and shaking our heads, we were all in agreement that the wheel did indeed need changing. We then stood around supervising the mechanic and nodded our approval as he changed it. I won’t lie there was a bond between us for those magical 10 minutes.

When we got to Siem Reap, in the 38 degree heat, noise and pure madness of Tuk Tuk drivers and moto taxi guys crazily hawking for business, at the back of them all, stood Chan, with a big grin across his face, holding up a sign saying ‘welcome to Siem Reap Rachel and Joseph’. Which was rather refreshing don’t you think?

"There are 7,000 tuk tuks in Siem Reap, that's a fact..." Kate Melua probably wouldn't have sung if she had been to Cambodia. Our Tuk Tuk driver was number 6064. I wonder if it's like that TV series 'The Prisoner' from the 1960's. Who is number 1? Can you work your way up? I kept looking over my shoulder, paranoid that a giant white balloon was following me. You will also be glad to know that by the time I got to Siem Reap my Laughing Cow consumption has dramatically decline to almost zero. Which is good because at one point I thought all the cows in the field were laughing at me, and when that happens you know you have problems. I was almost tempted to head back to Phnom Penh and shoot one at the shooting range, just to even the score a little. But I thought that might be a little dangerous as I could break out of the range and start mowing down innocent cows in the fields while madly cackling to myself and then running down the street doing a little jig...if you’re ever going to be famous for something the 'homicidal Cambodian cow killer' is never a good look.

We spent the first afternoon checking out the town. In the supermarket we stood behind the most stupidest French person, who would easily win 'most stupidest person of the year' award if they gave one out. She tried to buy her beer and snacks with Euros. This is Cambodia, they accept Riel, Dollars or even Thai Baht at a push, but Euros? The checkout girl just stood their not knowing what to do. In the end they were way too polite and accommodating and found out the exchange rate from a shop outside and accepted the Euros. I think it's because it was a new shop and they wanted to make a good impression, but I would have taken the note, shoved it up her arse and told her to come back when she's crapped out a few dollars. Maybe that's just ‘westerner’ talk, although I’m sure that’s what they would have done in Paris.
We were also told before we arrived here that there would be loads of beggars. But looking around we couldn't see any so joked that maybe they had rounded them all up in a truck and taken them away....we found out from Chan that that's just what they did, a few months before we got there.

Chan was going to be our driver and guide for the next three days, and he turned out to be one of the nicest people we have met so far. He was pretty new to Siem Reap. His mother-in-law had told him to move there when he got married. His new born kid and wife are now back in Kampong Cham while he’s here making some moolah. His mother-in-law used her house as collateral with the bank to get a loan to buy his tuk tuk so I guess she gets to call the shots.

There’s not a lot I can say about the temples other than they’re pretty spectacular and there are loads of them. Look at the photo’s if you want to know what they are like and buy a history book if you want to know about how, when and why they were built. I can’t explain it all here because there are oodles of facts and figures about them and quite frankly this blog is long and boring enough thank you very much. Therefore I’m afraid you’ll just have to believe me when I say they were all rather lovely. We got up early one morning (5am) to see sunrise at Angkor Wat, but it was too cloudy so didn’t see much. We then stayed out two days running to see a sunset, one evening climbing up to the top of a hill, but it was too cloudy so there was no sunset. But even though we didn’t get to see a sunrise or sunset over Angkor Wat (which is supposed to be the highlight of the trip) it was still worth the admission price of the three day ticket we bought. Our favourites were the Bayon (the one with the faces), Ta Prohm (where all the overgrown trees are literally strangling the temple to rubble) and Banteay Srei (which is quite a way out, but has loads of amazing intricate carvings). After two full days we were seriously templed out so spent the last day visiting a crocodile farm (not the most safety conscious place I’ve ever been too) and a cultural show.

We were a bit skeptical about going to this show, we had already sat through a few traditional dances and although interesting they could get pretty boring after 5 minutes, plus the tickets were pretty expensive for non-Cambodians. But Chan was very eager that we go and the look of excitement on his face (which was only matched when we asked him to take us to the crocodile farm earlier in the day) persuaded us to give it a go. And we were glad we did, because it was spiffing entertainment. Basically it’s spread out like a Disney style theme park but minus the rides. There were different minority village reconstructions each with a little stage where young actors and actresses would act out scenes from different aspects of Cambodian culture and minority village life. It was surprisingly funny and the audience really got in to the spirit of it all. It was mainly Cambodians there, young and old, families and groups of friends and very few tourists. As there were very few white faces whenever it came to audience participation (which happened a lot) you sort of stood out from the crowd and made yourself a target. We had a right ruddy good larf at some poor sods expense when he was dragged out, made to dress in a loin cloth and dance around on stage. I was still looking back at the photos, chuckling to myself when I looked up and got dragged out to appear in the next scene. Dammit! Luckily I didn’t have to dress in a loin cloth. When the guy took me backstage he said “have you ever ridden a water buffalo?” I said’ “no” thinking I’m going to have to act like I was riding one. He then took me around the corner and I was suddenly stood eye to eye with a real buffalo, which took me by surprise a little. I had to ride it out on stage and then dance and act in a few scenes for the amusement of a few hundred Cambodians watching. Now I’m not saying I was good, but I’m up for an Olivier award in the summer.
I can now cross ‘water buffalo’ off my ‘animals to ride on before I die’ list. Only that elusive Pigmy Goat to go.

On our last day we headed off to do some horse riding around the countryside. It was a 2hr circuit which took us through a few villages to an old temple and then back to the stable again. Rachel was in her element here, being actually able to ride a horse, where as I on the other hand took the ‘let the horse wander off and do what he pleased’ approach to horse riding. This was my first time riding a horse and I learnt two things. One, all horse riders must be eunuchs. And two, they must have arse cheeks of steel. In fact after all the abuse my own buttocks had been given over the last month, the bumpy bus rides, the cycling, the walking around the temples and then the horse riding, they decided they had had enough, detached themselves from my body and booked a ticket on the next flight home. If someone wouldn't mind keeping an eye out for them. They haven't called to say they got back safe so I’m afraid that they've been picked up by a scrupulous Russian Taxi Driver and they are now working in Staines as a Sex Slave. I've seen the news, I know what can happen.

Anyway, Siem Reap itself was a lovely laidback city, which is surprising considering the amount of tourists that come through its doors. You can officially say this place has the Joe and Rachel stamp of approval.

Before we headed out of Cambodia we decided we would pop over to Battambang for a couple of days just because we could. It's nice old city which has lost its 'Mojo' a bit. It reminds me of the furniture you get in old B&B's, it’s tatty, dusty and a bit wobbly but you can tell it had some class back in its heyday. Here we headed out of town to see a Killing cave (again see the familiar words here to describe the Khmer Rouge years) where kids as young as 10 or 11 were forced to kill their own parents. A pre-Angkor temple, which influenced the architecture of Angkor Wat and some mahoosive fruit bats. These things were huge and there were hundreds of them all hanging in the trees near a pagoda. We were told they are a bit of a delicacy apparently and cheaper than chicken. We didn't eat one.

We had Moto drivers as our guides here. They were lovely guys, but unfortunately not the brightest. At one point Rachel was asked by her driver, "why is it dark in Cambodia when it's light on the other side of the world?" He just couldn't understand it. She had to try and answer using basic pigeon English while sat on the back of a speeding moped with no props at hand. Even Steven Hawking might have a bit of trouble explaining that one.
At one point my guides moped ran out of fuel in the middle of nowhere. So Rachel's driver had to go off and find some petrol. But unfortunately he didn’t take the money. So he used his fare (Rachel) as leverage and left her with the lady while he rode off to give us the petrol. I'm not too sure what she would have done with Rachel if the guy never came back, but she had a look that told me she probably would have cooked and ate her.

After that slight delay we then headed off to take a ride on a Bamboo train. Cambodia has a few train lines, but there are no passenger trains and only one cargo train running once a week. This means the tracks are pretty redundant. The enterprising people in the surrounding villages of Battembang though saw the lines as a quick and easy way of getting around, so they built small self assembly Bamboo trains to transport themselves from one village to the next. Take a look at the photo's to see what it's like, but they are small bamboo platforms with attached train wheels and a moped engine (although I think they used to be hand driven a few years ago). They are easily disassembled and reassembled, which is convenient because if a proper train is on the track they have to quickly get off and get out of the way. If two bamboo trains come head to head it's whoever has the lightest load that has to get off and take their train apart, which is very civilized don't you think?

After a couple of nights here (there wasn't a lot to do and the beer shortage was beginning to hit hard) we decided the way to get to Bangkok with the least amount of hassle would be to head back to Siem Reap and get a private bus all the way from there. So back on the bus we went....

We were only in Siem Reap one night to organize the bus and to eat the garliciest chicken kiev you can imagine at Molly Malones Irish pub. We then took a lovely 13hour bus journey across the border to Thailand. When filling in a visa application form at the border, why do they make you put the hotel you are staying while in Thailand? Even if you don’t know where you are staying and have nothing booked they get really annoyed and send you to the back of the line until you’ve filled in all the boxes. So you write 'The Mickey Mouse Hotel, Willy Wonka Drive, Bangkok' and they don't even bat an eyelid, it's bureaucracy gone mad I tells ya! Other than that we had no problems and we got to Bangkok bang on time and with it brought the curtain down on our Cambodian travels.

Like Vietnam, we wished we had longer than a month but I’m sure we will be back. Things are developing so fast here that we will have a whole new Cambodia to explore.

How different is Cambodia to Vietnam I here you shout? Well Cambodia is still a third world country for a start (80% of the population are farmers) and the roads and infrastructure in Vietnam is much better. Vietnam is also far better geared to deal with tourism (and the money making scams they can pull on tourists), although I’m sure Cambodia is catching up fast (I don't know if that's a good thing or not). Cambodia has many more cars and trucks on the road and the land is more parched (it was the middle of the dry season) where as Vietnam was pretty lush all the way down the length of the country with water being more abundant and better irrigation in the fields.
There are three things I've noticed that apply to both countries though. Firstly: There are dogs everywhere. Not just a few, a full-on Moses style plague of them. They're not homeless, the majority actually have owners, it's just that they let them out to wonder off and prowl around town on their own. Most are completely comatose and harmless because of the heat. They just lie there, whether that be on the path, beach or in the middle of the road. Others play and chase each other and some, well they do stuff that would even make the Dutch blush. We actually saw two dogs have sexual relations while they were crossing the street. Crossing the street! Cars had to actually stop to let them pass. How mad is that?! And all this in a country that doesn't like public displays of affection. No wonder they get eaten. It's not because they like the taste of dog, it's a punishment!
The second thing is the rubbish. They are prolific litter bugs (for want of a less childlike phrase). If there was an Olympic event of fly tipping they would be a shoe-in for gold and silver. With a serious shortage of landfill sites most of the household waste just gets left by the side of the road and sporadically burnt. Everywhere you go you see huge piles of carrier bags scattered all over the floor. They recycle glass and plastic bottles better than most (definately better than us) and they don't generate anywhere near as much waste as most western countries, but I’m sure it's not the most hygienic or eye pleasing way of getting rid of your rubbish. But that's not for me to sort out.
And lastly, in both countries we've seen some massive cockroaches, so big and numerous you feel you're in a 'Men in Black' film and huge scary Hornets and ants that want to bite your face off. Thus we have found we are both officially rubbish when it comes to dealing with large insects and quick moving reptiles. This doesn't bode well for when we get to Australia. A place where insects hang around in gangs at bus stops mugging old ladies. I'll be stocking up on the Deet insect repellent at Singapore duty free me thinks!

So this is it then. After a month in Cambodia we find ourselves in Thailand. Many more photos have been uploaded on to photobucket (Thank you Tracy and Duncan) if you wanna have a looksy:

http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii40/rachelandjoseph/?albumview=link

Bye for now,
Joe and Rachel.x

Newsflash!!!!!!!!!!: Beer shortage in Cambodia. Prices doubled. Send help.

Hello again,

Sadly this isn't going to be the most sophisticated or free flowing travel blog you will ever read. We are watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, so the mind isn’t totally focused on the task at hand I’m afraid. Therefore please forgive the constant shift from present to past tense, the poor sentence structure and below par spelling. Also please be aware, this blog entry is going to be colossus. You might want to print it off and spend a few hours reading it on the toilet. You can then show your appreciation by wiping your bottom with it if you so wish. I would.

Unfortunately we are so far behind we've been in Thailand for over a month and I’m just getting time to write about Cambodia now. I've browsed the web and there are some people who update their blogs everyday...EVERYDAY! These people need to get off the computers and into the Pub a bit more....and that leads me nicely to my beer collection. It's coming along at a steady pace (over 40 now I think), but sadly I still haven't put them up on Photobucket yet. But don't panic they will be up soon, I promise. There are some lovely beers in there (Beer Lao, Saigon Red, Anchor from Cambodia and Chang being some of the best) and there are some nasty tasting ones too, normally the stuff I’ve picked up from the supermarket for 5p. The Palm beer was probably the most undrinkable. Anyway Sorry I lost track for a minute, where was I? ah yes, sadly Cambodia was too long ago now so I won't bother describing all the hotels we stayed in or every meal we ate, every beer we drank or everyone we met, it would just take too long and be a bit boring. Plus I'd have to make most of it up because I can't remember it. We did travel everywhere by bus though. The most interesting journey we had was probably from Battambang to Siem Reap on one of the worse conditioned roads in Cambodia that you don’t need a 4x4 or Trail bike to get down (we took this road three times in four days). It was bumpy, slow, dusty and the bus almost toppled over a couple of times (if you’ve always wanted to know, buses really don’t like being up on two wheels). At one point the driver needed to pee so stopped by the side of the road. Half the bus (men, women and children) jumped out (not wanting to pay to use the toilet at the rest stop further on) and decided to go in to the field with him. One old guy sat next to me decided squat and take a dump right next to the bus. "It's the dry season you fool, there are no leaves hiding you from view!" I didn't shout. That reminds me, over here only shake hands with people with your right hand.

So, taking the bus, it has its’ flaws….firstly they sometimes do a pick-up service, which is handy, but once you are on the bus you will then spend the next 2 hours driving around the block picking up passengers from other guest houses. You will inevitably drive passed your old guest house at least 3 more times before you finally leave town. If the Aircon works, the dial will be set to minus 10degrees and at the end of the journey you will look like you have just come back from an ill advised Captain Scott expedition to the arctic. There will be eye gougingly awful Karaoke video's played on the TV and there will always be more passengers on the bus than there are seats. The less fortunate will sit in the aisle with the various bags of rice, fruit and veg they are transporting that day. At a Rest Stop, when he wants to leave, the driver will sound his horn then drive off. If you are unfortunate enough to still be in the toilet with your pants around your ankles don't expect them to wait for you. But for all it’s faults it’s easy and really is the only way to travel across country (unless you fancy taking one of the overloaded pick-up trucks (see the photo in the Kratie folder) or get a shared taxi with 7 other passengers plus the driver - 3 in the front seat and five in the back!). Plus it’s like the budgie........Cheap.

We got in to a nice little routine while traveling through Cambodia. We arrive in town by bus, find a guesthouse and hire either a local tuk tuk driver or a couple of Moto (moped taxi) riders to act as a guide and take us around for a day. Then in the evening find a nice bar or restaurant, have some food and a few beers while watching the sun go down…sure beats working any which way you look at it. After a day or two we would look at the map, buy a bus ticket and move on to the next town that took our fancy. Most towns or cities are pretty similar in some ways. All have a few grand (if a little battered) colonial buildings, all have a central market where the locals can buy their food, clothes and odds and ends, some roadside stalls selling the cheapest and freshest sea food money can buy and topped off with a few decent and a few not so decent local and western run bars. So on the surface they all look very similar, but when you get out and take a long look around they all have something that distinguishes it from the other towns. For example Kratie has its fresh water dolphins, where as Kampot has world famous pepper farms and Bokor Hill Station close by, Kampong Cham on the other hand has a Bamboo Bridge where as Battembang has the Bamboo trains. One thing though, no matter where we went or whatever we did stayed constant throughout the month we were there. The locals. In some of the towns they are the friendliest people you could ever wish to meet and they are so damn happy to see you (which is not something you can say about most European towns). Actually there are two things that stayed constant throughout the month. The other was the weather. It’s so damn hot. Real hot. And dry. Hot, dry and dusty. They call the dust ‘Cambodian snow’ and when a few trucks go speeding past it can turn in to a right Pea Souper. It's a proper choker as well and by the end of the day all your clothes are covered in a fine red dusting. I’ll tell you another thing as well…Gavin from Autoglass would have nightmares if he saw the amount of cracked windscreens on the buses and cars out here...don't they know they should get the chip fixed for free, before it turns in to a crack and then they have to replace the whole window!

Anyway, now I’ll go all Adam Hart-Davis on your ass and take you back six and fifty days ago, when the moon was fat, the rivers had run dry and we had just arrived in Phnom Penh.....

We stayed along the river front, hired a Tuk Tuk driver for the first day to take us out to the usual sights, Royal Palace (a large compound of temples and pagodas etc) Toul Sleng Museum which was a former school, but used by the Khmer Rouge as a prison. It was a pretty gruesome place, where they tortured prisoners until they signed fake confessions and then killed them. Apparently only 7 out of the 20,000 prisoners held there survived. Then we went up to the Killing fields (where they killed up to 100 people a day. Mostly beaten and hacked to death rather than shot to save the bullets.) I won't go on about the whole Cambodia/Khmer Rouge history thing as I’m sure you can all read up on it using the wonderful thing called the internet if you want to. But the guesthouse summed it up on the back of the door to our room in their 'tips and advice about the city': "Remember the Khmer Rouge killed off all the smart people". A quite depressing start to our time in Cambodia really, but something you have to go and see to understand the country and the Cambodian people. We then popped to the market to haggle for some t-shirts and a Khmer Scarf. Neither of us are born hagglers. In fact we are so crap it ends up being like that scene from Life of Brian where he wants to buy a fake beard. Our driver also wanted to take us to a shooting range where you can pick a live animal and kill it. I'm not talking endangered species here or even exotic animals, basically you just get to shoot a cow……….Who the hell wants to shoot a cow with an AK-47?!? It's not the most agile and nimble of creatures is it, and they're definately not the best at hide and seek. And another thing, it’s not something you can even boast about, “It almost got away from me, but I used the old ‘roll and shoot’ technique and it went down like a sack of spuds”. So I’ll say again, who the hell wants to shoot a cow!?!
We passed up his offer to go to the shooting range and instead went to look at a Wat on a hill, which was very Wat like, saw an elephant giving rides around the Wat, which was very elephant like and then went for a beer and play some pool in the Hope and Anchor, very English pub like.

There’s not a lot I can say about Phnom Penh. It’s pretty much like any other city in that you can feel like you’re just one of a million faces in a crowd. It had a slight unsettling edginess to it when the sun went down, but by no means did we have a miserable time there, but we couldn’t see anything that we would miss or want to come back for.

After a few days we wanted to get away from the city and head for the beach, so we jumped on a bus to Sihanoukville. Down on the small stretch of Cambodian coast this place is rather ratty looking town with a few beaches of varying quality. At first we stayed with a lovely family in a small guesthouse (although we never saw any other guests). Our bedroom was right next to their front room, which sort of made us part of the family for the few days we were there. It was on a quiet section of the coast between Sokha and Serendipity beaches and near a very nice bar attached to the bungalow resort next door, which we felt inclined to frequent regularly. We then moved up in to the very noisy Monkey Republic bungalows in the heart of the ‘action’ in town, just off the back of Serendipity beach.
Unfortunately the main problem I can see with this place is two fold: The foreigners who have frequented Sihanoukville over the years (mainly idiots) and the locals who harass you every 5 minutes. You can’t have a relaxing read of a book without being interrupted by people wanting to braid your hair, give you a massage, sell you a sarong or a necklace or some beads or fruit to eat or a hammock to lie in, or sell you sunglasses, even if you are already wearing a pair, some want money to pull the hair out of your legs or arms or even cut your toe nails. And it’s not just adults it’s kids who are persistent and a few get abusive if you don’t buy anything off them. Then sadly there are the beggars (this is a touchy subject as there are those (handicapped mostly) that really do need to beg to feed themselves (there’s not a lot of government welfare support), but there are others who actually make more money begging in a week than some people (including police officers) do working for a month…not the best base for a fair and uncorrupt society!). I’m glad most are being enterprising and working for a living, but because it’s so full on, every second you are on the beach, it means you can’t relax, which is surely what going to the beach is all about? We also heard a couple of stories while we were there of tourists getting mugged by locals with screwdrivers, which doesn’t fill you with confidence about the place.
There are a couple of quiet beaches you can go to get away from all the hubbub; we particularly liked the small public stretch of a mainly private Sokha beach owned by luxury hotel. It’s quiet and you could have that small section just to yourself to relax and have a swim.

We also took a boat trip to see a mangrove forest in Ream National Park (move over Keith Richards, this is the rock ‘n’ roll life we’re leading now. We sleep all night and visit forests to look at different fauna by day!) With a non-profit tour company, who uses the money raised to run a school for under privileged children. The tour was pretty dull and uneventful (Rachel got attacked by a huge army of ants. You can actually see their teeth biting into you, not pleasant) but we saw the school and the kids, plus they showed us how they extract the bio diesel fuel from the cooking fat which they collect from the local restaurants. Quite informational, in a Discovery channel kind of way.

After a pretty underwhelming time in Sihanoukville we headed off down the road to Kampot/Kep.
Kampot is home of the famous Kampot pepper farms and Kep is a quiet old beach resort which fell in to disrepair when the Khmer Rouge moved in and decimated it. It’s a sorry looking place that’s seen better and richer days (we visited mid-week and it was almost desolate), but there is a hint of regalness, which hopefully will come back to the place. I hope so because it’ll be a darn sight more attractive proposition than Sihanoukville down the road.
Kampot is a small town running along the Teuk Chhou River, with Kampot pepper farms dotted around the province as well as all the other types of farms you usually get in this type of temperate country. Apparently Kampot pepper is one of the finest peppers and used in the fancy restaurants in Paris, or so the book reads. Our Tuk Tuk driver was a friendly young chap who had only been a tuk tuk driver for a few days (before he was a moto taxi driver). He used his bosses Tuk Tuk to drive us out to a few interesting sights for the afternoon and it turned out in to a great day out. He was even going to take us to his family home to have some tea. In search of an elusive pepper farm we went down roads that were definitely not Tuk Tuk country. At points we had to get out and push it up the hill, and one time get out and actually kick the wheel back on the axel. We also stopped at the Phnom Chhnork cave, which was very cave-like (the friendly young kids hanging around follow you up and act as ‘guides’, whether you like it or not to be honest, but we didn’t mind as they were quite amusing. In turn we gave a few thousand Reil to share between them) before driving us on to Kep for some lunch and a beer.
At the end of a few of these trips around the country, we realized the best part wasn’t always the sights we had set out to see, but the getting there. It's a relaxing life, sat in the back of a Tuk Tuk, driving through small rural villages, and then parking up to chat to the driver about Cambodia and his life over a few cold beers in a restaurant. Lovely stuff.

The second day, with Rachel being ill, I headed up on a tour to Bokor Hill Station. A deserted 1920’s, French built, Casino Resort that sits, unsurprisingly, on top of Bokor Hill. It was deserted when the French withdrew from Cambodia in the 40’s. The retreating Khmer Rouge also fought the Vietnamese here (One side shooting from the Casino and the other returning fire from the church a few hundred meters away). Gamblers, when they had lost everything, used to jump to their death off the back of the Casino down the mountain. It’s a ghostly place when the mist rolls in off over the top of the mountain. A few landmines are still dotted around here though and soldiers walked passed holding a sign saying ‘Danger. Mines’ (at first glance I thought it said Danger Mouse, which amused me for the rest of the day).
On the journey back to town on the back of the pickup truck, we all got talking and the subject inevitably got on to football. As I mentioned Swindon, the guy next to me sat up surprised and with what must be at least a million to one chance said he was a Swindon fan too. I then found out he lives in Cricklade. Since then we have overheard a couple of other travelers from Swindon. Isn’t it encouraging knowing we are all getting out and seeing the world?! It brings a small tear to this old Swindonian's eye.

After a day or two we decided to move over and see some of the east side of the country. To do that we had to head back to Phnom Penh, so we did. In Phnom Penh we went to the Foreign correspondents club (fcc) for dinner and beers, which was very nice indeed before heading up to Kratie.

We found ourselves another MP3 player down for this part of the trip, as the last standing MP3 player decided it didn’t like the songs we had put on in Sianoukville so deleted them, and just for good measure, some of the old ones as well. It left us with what seemed like an album titled ‘50 off the worse songs to listen to on any bus journey, ever’. We were left with Bon bloody Jovi for 5 hours (this came off Duncan's computer by the way). When it's a choice between Bon Jovi (thanks again Duncan) and the TV showing cringe worthy blue screen Westlife style karaoke videos, with a very heavy heart you have to choose the Jovi. If there was a third option of gouging out my eardrums and letting spiders eat my eyeballs I wouldn't have even hesitated, but you can never find a man-eating spider and a spoon when you need one. To be fair it wasn’t just Jovi on there, we also got to listen to 'Dude looks like a lady' by Aerosmith about 30 times. The tune is so drummed in to my head, I now find myself singing it in a stupidly high pitched voice at inconvenient and unfortunate moments (normally standing at a urinal or ordering a beer from an unnaturally large barman).

Anyway, the main thing here we wanted to see were the fresh water Irrawaddy dolphins at O Kampi and as a bonus Sambor, the largest Wat in Cambodia. The photos don’t do them justice (it’s bloody difficult to take a photo of a dolphin. It’s not like in Flipper, they don’t come up on to the boat and start juggling with beach balls), but we saw loads of them. They don’t jump out the water, but have to raise their head out every 20seconds or so to breathe. Some came pretty close to the boat and although they weren’t doing much apart from swim around you find yourself quite transfixed by them.
Heading away from the water we visited the Wat, that was like any other Wat really, but a bloody big one. Lovely inside with the walls covered in colourful paintings which told Buddhist stories. The guys in there couldn’t really speak English, but they were nice and let us sit down with them and browse through a book about Buddhism. On the way back to the hotel, we also went up to a meditation temple on top of a hill. That sentence pretty much sums up how interesting it was. Not very.

From here we headed south back down to Kampong Cham. On the way we stopped at a rest stop and saw a lady selling deep fried spiders, which in Snoul (a small town in the same area) is apparently a delicacy. We didn’t eat one.

Please turn over.......