01/03/2005 What you worried about Steve, we can do it! Hurrah!
Thursday, March 03, 2005
All temple'd out (Steve)oh, and deep fried spiders!!
Our first night in Siam Reap starts with sunset on top of a temple on a huge hill, along with about 2000 other tourists, maddest sunset we've seen as the sun went behind a cloud resulting an orange outline to the cloud resembling weird lightening!! Then an early night as we are up before dawn to spend the day seeing temple ruins at Angkor......
So the 2nd March starts at 5.30 am to get to Angkor Wat for sunrise. This old city dates from around 1000 AD and was the centre of the Khmer empire until roughly 1430 when the capital city shifted to the better situated Phnom Penh (where we're now sitting).
It was worth the early start, this place is stunning, we've seen the palace with the most 'bling' in Bangkok but this was totally different. At least ten big temples of slightly differing ages form what used to be the centre of the Khmer empire, its a huge place requiring a motorbike towing a trailer with us in it to get round!!! Hopefully the pictures Sian is putting on will look as good as it can on screen. I'm going to let the pictures do the talking but all I can say is that these are where they filmed some of Tomb Raider, thats the kind of place it is, it was like discovering the Inca trail in South America or some similar amazing place of history. I can only say it is so good I think everyone should go to Cambodia especially. Apart from the very strong (eye-watering at times) bat droppings etc in the roofs of a lot of the temples.
The one downside to it all is the heat and dust, we drank about 5 litres of water to one trip to the loo, and thats not an exageration! By 3pm we were knackered and so ended our extraordinary trip to Angkor. Many, many amazing memories of this day........
3rd March 2005- Up early again to get the 7.30 bus to Phnom Penh, bracing ourselves for another truely awful ride across rutts and bumps.......only to end up on a bus that had working air-con, and we were on surfaced roads!!!! Such a relief. We stopped for refreshments at Skuon, a town offering very little unless you're partial to a deep fried Tarantula, after eating the crickets and ants in Bangkok I ........no I didnt, but they did actually smell quiet nice, maybe next time....
Anyway we rocked into Cambodia's capital at 2pm to be mobbed by touts for hotels, they pretty much started fighting over us (and two english lads we'd met in Siam Reap) and ended up going to a hotel that was full!! Idiots. So we trudge back across to find Royal guest house and a fourth floor room overlooking the city!! All's well that ends well, of back there now for some banges and mash!! See ya............
So the 2nd March starts at 5.30 am to get to Angkor Wat for sunrise. This old city dates from around 1000 AD and was the centre of the Khmer empire until roughly 1430 when the capital city shifted to the better situated Phnom Penh (where we're now sitting).
It was worth the early start, this place is stunning, we've seen the palace with the most 'bling' in Bangkok but this was totally different. At least ten big temples of slightly differing ages form what used to be the centre of the Khmer empire, its a huge place requiring a motorbike towing a trailer with us in it to get round!!! Hopefully the pictures Sian is putting on will look as good as it can on screen. I'm going to let the pictures do the talking but all I can say is that these are where they filmed some of Tomb Raider, thats the kind of place it is, it was like discovering the Inca trail in South America or some similar amazing place of history. I can only say it is so good I think everyone should go to Cambodia especially. Apart from the very strong (eye-watering at times) bat droppings etc in the roofs of a lot of the temples.
The one downside to it all is the heat and dust, we drank about 5 litres of water to one trip to the loo, and thats not an exageration! By 3pm we were knackered and so ended our extraordinary trip to Angkor. Many, many amazing memories of this day........
3rd March 2005- Up early again to get the 7.30 bus to Phnom Penh, bracing ourselves for another truely awful ride across rutts and bumps.......only to end up on a bus that had working air-con, and we were on surfaced roads!!!! Such a relief. We stopped for refreshments at Skuon, a town offering very little unless you're partial to a deep fried Tarantula, after eating the crickets and ants in Bangkok I ........no I didnt, but they did actually smell quiet nice, maybe next time....
Anyway we rocked into Cambodia's capital at 2pm to be mobbed by touts for hotels, they pretty much started fighting over us (and two english lads we'd met in Siam Reap) and ended up going to a hotel that was full!! Idiots. So we trudge back across to find Royal guest house and a fourth floor room overlooking the city!! All's well that ends well, of back there now for some banges and mash!! See ya............
Bug munching (both)
Thats as destinct from rug munching, thats an entirely different ball game!!
Seriously though, eating crickets and ants really is ok . So we didnt try the scorpions but would you??
The Crickets tasted very similar to prawns and ants a bit like spring onions suprisingly.
Wouldn't eat them again unless we were starving and that was all that was on offer, but even then we wouldn't mind.
Seriously though, eating crickets and ants really is ok . So we didnt try the scorpions but would you??
The Crickets tasted very similar to prawns and ants a bit like spring onions suprisingly.
Wouldn't eat them again unless we were starving and that was all that was on offer, but even then we wouldn't mind.
Wednesday, March 02, 2005
The roads of hell (Steve)
Well, despite the re-assurances of the travel agent in Bangkok that its รก nice bus' and despite the fact that we had been warned about Cambodia we were a little disgruntled to find our day (28/2/05) went like this;
7am-Pick up time, only the minibus wasnt to take us to the 'nice bus' it was taking all the way to the border!! So bad start really, pretty uncomfortable too.
12noon (roughly) Pull up at a point about 10kms short of the border, whereupon the 'helpful' guides will get our visas for us, and charge 1200baht for the privilledge. We state that its only 1000 at the border but as they had dropped us in the middle of nowhere we were stuck, because we would apparently miss our bus the other side.
2pm-The border crossing. Waiting in a queue, with backpack, in seering heat, for ages anyway, then another quick ride on a motorbike taxi thing to a bus station, which was actually a shop of a travel company. We then had a 30 minute wait for our 'nice bus', which turned out to be a cramped, bouncy 24 seater whose air con wasnot working. Wonderful so far.
So the bus gets underway and soon we are wondering if we'll make it to Siam Reap, to call the roads roads is really not right, rutted dirt tracks is far more acurate. But when your old bus is trying to go at 40kms an hour over them you quickly realise just how insane this is. How the bus doesnt split down the middle is anyones guess, we got shaken around so badly, but just to prove the saying that theres always someone worse of than you is correct, some poor girl had food poisoning!!! The bus then broke down taking 1.5 hours to fix, although they also got the air con to work, but only for an hour or so. Some of the bridges on the track are wooden and very worring, the driver helped by telling us that sometimes bigger vehicles (we're on a frigging bus!!) break the bridge and either get stuck or fall......thanks pal.
After all this we finally get to Siam Reap at 11pm, 5 hours late, feeling like we'd gone a few rounds with Lennox Lewis. In India we thought we'd found some bad roads, this place is up there with Mozambique as having the worst roads on the planet (according to the lonely planet) and we can well believe them!! Bring on the boat to Phom Phen!!
7am-Pick up time, only the minibus wasnt to take us to the 'nice bus' it was taking all the way to the border!! So bad start really, pretty uncomfortable too.
12noon (roughly) Pull up at a point about 10kms short of the border, whereupon the 'helpful' guides will get our visas for us, and charge 1200baht for the privilledge. We state that its only 1000 at the border but as they had dropped us in the middle of nowhere we were stuck, because we would apparently miss our bus the other side.
2pm-The border crossing. Waiting in a queue, with backpack, in seering heat, for ages anyway, then another quick ride on a motorbike taxi thing to a bus station, which was actually a shop of a travel company. We then had a 30 minute wait for our 'nice bus', which turned out to be a cramped, bouncy 24 seater whose air con wasnot working. Wonderful so far.
So the bus gets underway and soon we are wondering if we'll make it to Siam Reap, to call the roads roads is really not right, rutted dirt tracks is far more acurate. But when your old bus is trying to go at 40kms an hour over them you quickly realise just how insane this is. How the bus doesnt split down the middle is anyones guess, we got shaken around so badly, but just to prove the saying that theres always someone worse of than you is correct, some poor girl had food poisoning!!! The bus then broke down taking 1.5 hours to fix, although they also got the air con to work, but only for an hour or so. Some of the bridges on the track are wooden and very worring, the driver helped by telling us that sometimes bigger vehicles (we're on a frigging bus!!) break the bridge and either get stuck or fall......thanks pal.
After all this we finally get to Siam Reap at 11pm, 5 hours late, feeling like we'd gone a few rounds with Lennox Lewis. In India we thought we'd found some bad roads, this place is up there with Mozambique as having the worst roads on the planet (according to the lonely planet) and we can well believe them!! Bring on the boat to Phom Phen!!
Monday, February 28, 2005
The next day.....(Steve)
25/2/2005-What do you expect, nothing happened today. Well exept for the fact when Sian went to bed after we watched Pirates of the Caribean, Carly, Trenna, Mick, Rory and me decided that another trip to the pirates bar was in order. We never learn do we!! By 1.30am we were back on the buckets and singing all manor of songs, having two hours of sleep this morning I'm amazed an of us managed to walk never mind this!
The girls were leaving at 6.30 (by boat!!! Good luck girls) so they stayed up singing till departure time, I had given up at 5am, and retired feeling Sang-Som'd to the extreme.
26/2/2005- Tom and Jess had left yesterday,Trenna and Carly left at 6.30am and the Irish lads had gone too at 10am. How much of a post party downer did we have?!?! Sian cried a bit, being really tough and manly of course I did not, we waited for our taxi to take us to the ferry. After last nights swansong at the pirates bar I didn't know what planet I was on, so when we left the very lonely feeling hut sun, I needed to sleep rather a lot. Luckily the ferry crossing to Surat Thani was smooth and I slept all the way. While waiting for the coach to Bangkok I was still feeling a bit odd, managed to sleep till midnight when we had our 14 minute (why not 15?) break. Felt so awake that when offered some valium to help me sleep I accepted, the next thing I remember is waking up in Bangkok feeling very confused having been knocked out by the Valium, and once in our hotel I realised that my mobile was no longer present when I called the register, it had fallen out of the bag on the bus after we got a text and we were so gone that we didnt notice!! Bollocks!!
Moral of the story, dont drink buckets of Sang-Som, dont take Valium on the bus and avoid pretty women in Thailand-they are really men.
Off to Cambodia tomorrow for something completely different, as monty python would say....
The girls were leaving at 6.30 (by boat!!! Good luck girls) so they stayed up singing till departure time, I had given up at 5am, and retired feeling Sang-Som'd to the extreme.
26/2/2005- Tom and Jess had left yesterday,Trenna and Carly left at 6.30am and the Irish lads had gone too at 10am. How much of a post party downer did we have?!?! Sian cried a bit, being really tough and manly of course I did not, we waited for our taxi to take us to the ferry. After last nights swansong at the pirates bar I didn't know what planet I was on, so when we left the very lonely feeling hut sun, I needed to sleep rather a lot. Luckily the ferry crossing to Surat Thani was smooth and I slept all the way. While waiting for the coach to Bangkok I was still feeling a bit odd, managed to sleep till midnight when we had our 14 minute (why not 15?) break. Felt so awake that when offered some valium to help me sleep I accepted, the next thing I remember is waking up in Bangkok feeling very confused having been knocked out by the Valium, and once in our hotel I realised that my mobile was no longer present when I called the register, it had fallen out of the bag on the bus after we got a text and we were so gone that we didnt notice!! Bollocks!!
Moral of the story, dont drink buckets of Sang-Som, dont take Valium on the bus and avoid pretty women in Thailand-they are really men.
Off to Cambodia tomorrow for something completely different, as monty python would say....
Ful Mooning Party (Steve)
24th February 2005-Ko Pha-Ngan Island.
So, the biggest free beach party in the world, we've gone out and bought some UV fluorescent paint and cut up a pink Lilo to make some interesting outfits, as you do.
Its gonna be a big night so we start drinking early, as you do. Having made ourselves look a little silly, but very cool of course using the afore-mentioned UV paint, we get into our taxi and head to Had Rinn, the scene of the crime. Sian, Tom, Jess and myself have gone ahead of Carly, Trenna and the Irish lads, having arranged to meet up, very cleverly at no specific time. As soon as we got there we realised that meeting people here was a near on impossible task, picking out friends in the UV lights and darkness was very much like looking for George Bush's conscience, so we decided to party with just the 4 of us and if we found t' others then cool.
Dancing away the time starts to pass quickly, aided very nicely by beer and Vodka buckets (the bucket drinking two nights ago led us to believe the sang-som is evil). Amazingly we are pretty sober still at about 2am, we decide to have a quick sit down when one of the Irish lads (Rory) stubles round the corner and collapses next to us. Clearly an indication of how messy things were already we sat with him for a while while we carried on drinking Singha beer. A quick walk round the beach revealed the extent of 'bucket damage', people shagging in the sea and on the beach, sometimes with a small crowd around them, as well as men and women pissing in the sea (its was very warm) as well as the expected vomitting, again into the sea. Painting a nice picture here eh? Thats not to mention the fact that we found 3 hotel rooms keys, several wallets, even a scooter, althought that turned out to belong to a cameraman making a documentery on the party.
The clubs though were really good, all full of UV lights making our outfits glows loads, as well as some funky house music, all was good and fun! As it neared sun rise we headed to the mellow bar on the rocks to the left of the beach, it was only now that we started to feel pissed and amazingly we had been there for about 9 hours!!! As we walked back finding the new day's light amusing we find Carly and Trenna, who had lost their camera and were a little dispondant with each other, alcohol is a funny thing, I'm sure that if it were invented now it would never be made legal.......
The number of accidents is usually a few drownings, and maybe a boat accident or 2, not aware of any this month but having seen a long boat nearly run over a 'frisky' couple we could see how its so dangerous.
7.30 am-As we were covered in sand the only sensible thing to do was jump in the toilet, er I mean sea, fully clothed with Sian and Trenna. Should have remembered to remove my watch though, which died at 7.35am. The 45 minute taxi ride back was spent with a beer (again) and having a water fight, the driver, not being amused, drove at mach 2 to Hut Sun to get us back for making a mess.
As partys go, it was crazy, if you're ever in the area at full moon time, check it ooouttt!!
So, the biggest free beach party in the world, we've gone out and bought some UV fluorescent paint and cut up a pink Lilo to make some interesting outfits, as you do.
Its gonna be a big night so we start drinking early, as you do. Having made ourselves look a little silly, but very cool of course using the afore-mentioned UV paint, we get into our taxi and head to Had Rinn, the scene of the crime. Sian, Tom, Jess and myself have gone ahead of Carly, Trenna and the Irish lads, having arranged to meet up, very cleverly at no specific time. As soon as we got there we realised that meeting people here was a near on impossible task, picking out friends in the UV lights and darkness was very much like looking for George Bush's conscience, so we decided to party with just the 4 of us and if we found t' others then cool.
Dancing away the time starts to pass quickly, aided very nicely by beer and Vodka buckets (the bucket drinking two nights ago led us to believe the sang-som is evil). Amazingly we are pretty sober still at about 2am, we decide to have a quick sit down when one of the Irish lads (Rory) stubles round the corner and collapses next to us. Clearly an indication of how messy things were already we sat with him for a while while we carried on drinking Singha beer. A quick walk round the beach revealed the extent of 'bucket damage', people shagging in the sea and on the beach, sometimes with a small crowd around them, as well as men and women pissing in the sea (its was very warm) as well as the expected vomitting, again into the sea. Painting a nice picture here eh? Thats not to mention the fact that we found 3 hotel rooms keys, several wallets, even a scooter, althought that turned out to belong to a cameraman making a documentery on the party.
The clubs though were really good, all full of UV lights making our outfits glows loads, as well as some funky house music, all was good and fun! As it neared sun rise we headed to the mellow bar on the rocks to the left of the beach, it was only now that we started to feel pissed and amazingly we had been there for about 9 hours!!! As we walked back finding the new day's light amusing we find Carly and Trenna, who had lost their camera and were a little dispondant with each other, alcohol is a funny thing, I'm sure that if it were invented now it would never be made legal.......
The number of accidents is usually a few drownings, and maybe a boat accident or 2, not aware of any this month but having seen a long boat nearly run over a 'frisky' couple we could see how its so dangerous.
7.30 am-As we were covered in sand the only sensible thing to do was jump in the toilet, er I mean sea, fully clothed with Sian and Trenna. Should have remembered to remove my watch though, which died at 7.35am. The 45 minute taxi ride back was spent with a beer (again) and having a water fight, the driver, not being amused, drove at mach 2 to Hut Sun to get us back for making a mess.
As partys go, it was crazy, if you're ever in the area at full moon time, check it ooouttt!!
Sunday, February 27, 2005
Wednesday, February 23, 2005
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