Day 47 - 2nd Apr 2009

It's my birthday! Although it feels kinda strange to be spending it in Cambodia and then Hong Kong. Adam has been carrying cards for me from home so we start the day by opening them and some presents. To be honest it makes me miss everyone, but only 2 weeks left now so it'll soon go.

The hotel in Phonm Penh is really nice and they do a good breakfast, nothing fancy but the eggs are cooked well. Plus the have free computers to use so that's great for emailing. We then got our taxi to the airport, it's a bit weird driving around the city with motorbikes, cyclists and taxis whizzing all around whilst we're feeling really safe in the car. Adam had some issues getting through security, on the bag scan they thought they'd seen a knife so searched his bag only to find there was no knife, however they did find his sellotape which they confiscated for being dangerous!

Arrived in Hong Kong at about 3pm, decided to use the airport express train to get into town and then use the MTR to get to our hotel. Only problem with this was that it meant changing lines twice and the last train was pretty busy, anyway we managed. We started walking to the hotel and turned down the road which it's on only to find a busy fruit and veg market going on, plus we're not sure which along the road we need to go. Luckily we picked the right direction and manage to negotiate the crowds of people.

When we get to our room we discover it is the smallest room there could possibly be! It is basically the width of a double bed, with a tiny space down one side, not really big enough to walk down. There's a wardrobe, well a tiny cupboard on the wall which you can hang shirts in, but 90 degrees to the way they would normally hang! Anyway I guess you get what you pay for...

Whilst deciding what to do with the rest of the day I received a birthday phonecall from Duncan. It was great to hear from England, I'm looking forward to getting home.

We then headed out, first we took the MTR to the last stop in Kowloon. As soon as we got out of the subway station people were hassling us about getting suits made and shirts etc, we soon decided to turn off the crazy busy road. We walked around a bit a then watched the light show. We looked over to Hong Kong Island from Kowloon and they played music whilst some the buildings did a light show. It was kinda entertaining although I think seeing it once is enough. We then took the star ferry over to Hong Kong Island. It's crazy how cheap it is, about 23p one way!

For dinner we eventually found a weird pizza bar. The beer was pretty nice although fairly pricey and pizza was good. The street it was on seemed quite 'interesting' some nice ladies trying to get business in some bars! We finally made it back to our hotel, fairly late and pretty tired! Unfortunately by time we got back to our tube stop the nice cake shop was shut so no birthday cake for me today...

Day 46 - 1st Apr 2009

Breakfast at the hotel before we checked out in time for our 7:45 pickup from our hotel for the bus to Phnom Phen. Slightly concerning in that the hotel staff had never heard of the company on our ticket and when they tried to phone up to find out where the coach was they couldn't get through. So we waited nervously wondering if we had been sold wothless tickets...

But at 8am our bus arrived. Phew! However it looked nothing like the shiny new bus on our ticket and was quite old with hard seats and no air conditioning. But to be honest we were so glad that a bus had actually turned up that we didn't bother to argue and just got on. And off we went, though after about twenty minutes we pulled into what must be the Siem Reap bus depot where our actual bus was waiting; it turned out the first one was just the shuttle bus. Now the second bus still wasn't exactly brand new, but it would have been a top range luxury bus when it was and it had air conditioning that worked. Although strangly some of the seats were obviously from different coaches.

And so started our long journey to Phnom Phen. At one point we stopped in a town somewhere and were told we had to get off off the bus; we were slighlty concerned but it turned out it was just a toliet stop. After about 7 hours of travelling and having watched 2 films where I didn't understand a word that was said we arrived at the outskirts of Phnom Phen. Now if there had been no traffic it probably would have taken another 5 minutes but as it was it took another hour. The traffic was crawling and the reason was down to the unusal approach the Cambodians have to roadworks. Whereas in the UK we would have properly coned off areas, reduced speed limits and diversions where needed; in Cambodia they don't bother with any of that and just get going digging up whatever bit of road they need to. It is then up to the traffic to work out how to get by. In Siem Reap we saw a place where they had dug up the whole street and the traffic just went up over the pavement. Here we had to negotiate around diggers and the traffic fighting to come the other way.

Eventually we made it to our destination and were immediately met by the throngs of tuk tuk drivers, decided to just go with the first one who latched on to me, which in actual fact wasn't the greatest move as he didn't actually know where our hotel was. But I managed to knock his $5 down to 3 which was quite cheap and with some initial help from his friend and later from my guide book we made it to the hotel. He then tried to insist that he would take us to the airport the next day, but with his navigation skills we declined...

Had a very late lunch at the hotel bar, during which it poured with rain, then headed out for a quick look round the vicinity. We walked past the Silver Pagoda a big temple which is one of the main tourist sights, but didn't go in as it was closed. We then walked past the Cambodia-Vietnam friendship monument and down towards the independance monument. It is quite nice paved area around here and there were lots of Cambodians out playing badmington and football and other games.

Headed towards some restaurants which were in our guide books and met an Australian chap who claimed to have had his wallet stolen and needed to borrow a few dollars to phone Australia to get some money transferred. Unfortunately it sounded like the beginnings of some sort of con, so we symphasised with him then said we had no change!

Had dinner at a Thai restaurant before heading back to the hotel where Liz went for a swim while I wrapped some presents ready for tomorrow...

Day 45 - 31st Mar 2009

Today we had arranged for a tuk tuk to take us around the Temples of Angkor. (Technically speaking it's not a tuk tuk but that's what everyone seems to call them round here, it's a moterbike with a trailer attached and the trailer is a kinda carriage, you can fit up to 4 people in them but it's fairly comfortable with 2.) We had a nice breakfast at the hotel, the hotel has been finished very nicely with lots of cool statues and ornaments. The tuk tuk picked us up at 9am and we had arranged for him to take us round for the whole day, which I think can be up to 8 hours! First we headed to the ticket booth to buy our passes. This is extremely hi tech as they take a photo of you on a web cam and print it onto your pass. There was quite a queue but luckily for us only for the 3 day passes so we were straight through. We then went to the first temple on the tour, Angkor Wat, this is the biggest and probably most famous of them all. It is huge. We were dropped off at the entrance which is a causeway over the huge moat that surronds the grounds of the temple. Then there is a wall which is the first part of the temple, which was pretty impressive but as you walk through this you can then see the main part of the temple. It is so impressive, words can't really describe it. There is quite a distance to walk between this first wall and the main part and it is quite exposed so the sun is beating down with no relief from any shade. Thankfully the inside of the temple is cooler. Hopefully we will be able to put some pictures onto the website soon so you be able to see for yourselves as it is hard to describe the place, but it is definately a major highlight of the trip.

Next we went to Angkor Thom which is a much smaller temple but still impressive in a different way. This temple is made up of lots of bricks of stone which to start with just look a bit of a jumbled mess but as you get closer you can make out faces carved into them. Around the Angkor Thom site there are also several smaller sights to see including the Terrace of Elephants. Across the road from here are loads of souvenoir stands and stalls for food so we decided to eat here. Everytime you get near to these stalls people start shouting at you to try and sell things, so as soon as we started to cross the road a lady came across with a menu and starting talking to us. We went with her to eat at her restaurant/stall. It was all pretty cheap and the food was very good considering their kitchen is a tiny area and it's kind of like a camping kitchen. In total we had a rice dish each, 2 cans of coke and a 1.5litre bottle of water to take with us, all for $8 (US dollars). I'm not sure if we've mentioned this but the countries main currency is US dollars, except when something is less then a dollar and they use riel.

It does get kind of tiring always saying 'no thanks' to these people consistently trying to sell things, but the kids are worse. Generally speaking once you've said no to an adult they will leave you alone but the kids keep trying to put the items in your hand and follow you. Mostly this only happens outside the temple so at least you can enjoy the inside in peace.

We went to a couple of smaller temples on our way to Ta Prohm. At Ta Prohm they haven't cleared away all of the jungle so there are still trees growing from the walls of the temple. It is really weird how the buildings and the trees are joined together. Quite a bit of the temple is closed off as it is too dangerous to walk around it but some is still accessible. I think it was this temple which was used in Tomb Raider.

Like the first temple there is quite a walk to get out of the temple grounds and at the gate where our driver said he would meet us there was loads of people selling stuff. The gate to walk was pretty narrow and everyone was ready and waiting on the other side to try and sell things. Two kids even came to the Tuk Tuk and kept trying to sell us stuff as we drove off. We decided that we were all templed out after this so we got our driver to take us back. We drove a different way back to the hotel and saw some interesting sights on the way.

We were pretty tired after our days temple sight seeing but headed out to get some dinner. Adam headed into the market to buy a surprise birthday present for me while I had a beer at the cheap beer place we went to the night before. We decided to try the food there as well, and learnt that fresh spring rolls are nowhere near as nice as the fried ones!

Day 44 - 30th March 2009

An early start today to get our 4:30am taxi to the airport. We had booked it the day before with the hotel and when we checked out the taxi was waiting for us at the kerbside. Slightly worryingly the taxi driver was fast asleep inside his taxi and it took some banging on his window from the hotel staff before he emerged looking rather sleepy. On the plus side he got us to the airport quite quickly (though Liz thought perhaps a bit worryingly so and there may have been an incident with a level crossing which seemed to have flashing lights...) and his meter wasn't 'broken' so the fare was about a quarter of what the first chap was asking and half of what we actually paid the first chap.

So we got to the airport about 5am and headed to the Air Asia desk to see if anyone had handed in Liz's iPod and DS. There was a lost and found counter which seemed promising but the chap there said we needed to come back in half an hour to see the right person, then after half an hour he said another 15 minutes and when eventually we did get to see the 'right' person he said it hadn't been handed in so there wasn't much we could do :-(.

So with 90 minutes till our flight we headed towards our gate. The queues for passport control were huge and the staff seemed to be in no hurry about what they were doing. There were a few people who were getting agitated about missing their flights.

Eventually got thorugh and Liz got some breakfast at Burger King before we boarded our flight. The gate was one of these where you have to get on a bus which takes you to the plane and we had a nice chat with a couple from San Francisco who were also on their way to Cambodia.

After our shortest plane journey yet on this trip of just 40 minutes, during which time they managed to serve breakfast, we arrived in Cambodia at Siem Reap. The airport there is very small, but quite pretty in a traditional Cambodian design. Took us a little while to clear passport control as we had to apply for a visa on arrival, which was no problem just time consuming, then it was a taxi journey to our hotel.

The hotel was right in the centre of Siem Reap and was a very beautiful building set in some pretty gardens. It was only about 10am but luckily our room was ready for us and we took the opportunity to get a bit more sleep.

After that we headed out to find some lunch. As in Bangkok there are lots of Tuk Tuks which are constantly trying to give you lifts to places. One chap even followed us down the road and I must have said no to him about 4 times! We found somewhere from our guide book for lunch which was nice food and a good price too. (Plus the had air con which was a major plus point!)

After lunch we thought we would go and have a look round the old market and although it wasn't really that far by this time the midday sun was baking and we thought we might be better to give a tuk tuk a go. So on emerging from the restaurant who should we find outside but the Tuk Tuk driver who had chased us down the street. We negotiated his fare down to $1 and in about 5 minutes were at the old market.

Our first task was to arrange onwards travel to Phonm Phen where our next hotel was booked and where we would catch the plane to Hong Kong. We found a small shop which sold bus tickets and decided to go for the so called 'VIP' bus for an extra $2 each, the bus in the picture looked very modern and claimed to have free water, toilet and a hostess service!

We then wandered around the old market which sells all sorts of things from fruit and veg and meat to rows of souvenior stalls. Again we felt like there was an awful lot of stalls and not so many tourists, so all the stallholders were very keen to try and get us into their stall.

After a while we had had enough and feeling quite warm decided to stop for a drink. We managed to find the cheapest beer which I have ever had in a pub/restaurant. The local Angkor draft for an amazing 50 American cents (about 35p).

We headed back to our hotel and went for a very refreshing swim in their pool and then sat in the loungers by the side in the shade and read some of the guide book.

At the airport we had been handed a leaflet about the night market, which claimed that there was free wifi, so we decided to head over there and take a look. We didn't manage to find any free wifi but the market was interesting to wander round and we bought a few souveniors. They also had a rather strange 'fish massage' where you could put you feet in a big pool full of fish, which would then come and nibble at your feet. We decided to give that one a miss...

Then it was dinner at a mexican restaurant we had seen earlier in the day which again was very reasonably priced and back to our hotel and bed. At our hotel we spotted some local wildlife in the form of 2 geckos; which Liz says she would have quite liked to see, except for the fact that they were running around on our hotel room's ceiling!

Day 43 - 29th Mar 2009

Firstly Bangkok is a hot city, It must be the warmest place we have been to so far.

We had breakfast at the hotel which was a mission in itself, we couldn't find the breakfast room, even after asking the receptionist. It wasn't untill a man sat on the street fixing radios pointed where to go that we figured it out! We then headed to the Grand Palace, our guide book said to get there early to beat all the other tourist so we were there by about 9am. It seemed everyone else had the same plan. We started heading for the wrong gate and meet a local who told us that the Grand Palace is only open for Thai residents in the morning, I think he wanted to take us someone on his Tuk Tuk, but we just carried on and surprise surprise he was lying. It seems a shame that people here seem to have to lie to try and make money from tourists, we found this different from Malaysia (well, except the taxi driver who said there wasn't a ferry, perhaps everywhere is the same after all).

So we headed into the Grand Palace, I almost got turned away for not having long enough trousers, even though they were well below my knees! The buildings inside the Grand Palace complex are amazing, so ornate and so many of them. It's kinda expensive to get in, but worth it. We even looked round the coin museum which was pretty dull but had air con so worth it for that!

We found a really nice little cafe for lunch, it was tiny and I was amazed that the managed to serve people in there at all. I tried the green curry which was delicious and Adam had Pad Thai which was also excellent. It was also pretty cheap which is always good!

We then headed for amulet market, you never know when you might need one... We didn't actually explore the whole amulet market but we saw plenty from the stalls lining the main road.

Adam decided we should try to go on a boat, however he didn't want to do a tourist boat trip but use the public boats. We stood for quite some time trying to figure it out, a main problem being that our guide book seemed to have different boat routes marked on than the one at the jetty. We eventually decided to just got for it and see what happened, after it was only about 20p per journey! We soon realised that from the stop we were at the only way to go was simply across the river to a stop on the other side and then from there you could get a boat the went down river to various stops. It was pretty fun riding the boats and they got pretty full with lots of people standing in the middle.

We got off the ferry at the stop for Wat Po, the temple with the giant reclining buddha. And it is giant. There's also some other decorative buildings but with the heat it gets tiring very quickly so we only did a quick walk around.

As it was so hot we went back to the hotel so we could cool down with the air conditioning. We were going to buy a beer each from the 7 eleven on the corner but they have weird times when you can buy alchohol, 11 - 2 and then 5 - 12! Soft drinks for us...

After our rest we went back out to buy some dinner. We'd seen an Indian restaurant the night before which looked ok so decided to head for that. On the way we saw some fire fighters trying to put a fire at a terraced shop. I think it looked under control but one fire fighter almost fell through the roof as it gave way when he walked across it. We wandered around the markets and bought a couple of t-shirts. We also spotted some lanterns which Bee had asked us to look out for, so we asked the price and then went to have dinner whilst deciding how many we could fit in our luggage. The food was very nice, not too disimilar to the curries we get in England. We headed back out in search of the lanterns, we saw them on a different stall and bought all the ones she had in the suitable colours, this involved taking the display ones as well. We then went back and bought the ones from the first stall. We must have looked slightly obsessive about lanterns! Getting them back to the room I realised they took more space than perhaps I'd intended but I guess it's all in the duty of being a good bridesmaid! (I think we might need to send another parcel home!)

We packed up our stuff ready to leave the hotel at 4.30 to catch our flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Unfortunately it was a bad end to the day as I realised I had left my Ipod and Nintendo DS on the previous flight. I remember taking them out of my bag but not putting them back. I guess worse things could happen so I should be grateful it's just replacable stuff which isn't essential anyway, just I'll have some long train rides with no music to look forward to now.

Day 42 - 28th Mar 2009

We had a lazy morning and just stayed at the hotel. We had breakfast and then went for a swim. I finally managed to do a length of the pool doing front crawl, I usually do breast stroke so this was quite an acheivement for me.

We slowly packed our bags and got ready to leave, although we were pretty sad as we bothed really liked our hotel and Penang. Oh well there's more things to see so we had to get packing and move on. We left the hotel to get lunch from a local cafe and then got a taxi to the airport. We arrived with plenty of time to spare and checked in, just making the weight restrictions. This was the first flight that we didn't get seats together. The flight was with AirAsia a kind of Ryan Air for Asia. The flight left on time and we arrived in Bangkok at about 6pm. The airport seemed pretty new and looked quite modern. We decided to get a metered taxi to our hotel. There's a weird coupon system although you don't pay or agree a price, just say where you're going. Anyway we set off only for our taxi driver to let on that he didn't know where our hotel was. He phoned them up and seemed happy about getting there. We had a couple of communication issues with him not knowing much English and us not knowing any Thai. We started getting concerned as the meter kept going up and up and soon it was more than we had money to pay. We had to pay for a couple of road tolls so we were getting a bit concerned that we didn't have enough to pay for the taxi. Although we had checked how much it should be in our guide book so we knew we should be able to afford it. Adam hoped the figure we would be charged was the small top figure where as I had a horrible feeling he was going to try and change us the extortinate bottom number. So we finally got the hotel and he said the price, he also tried to say he was doing it cheaper than he should! The figure was about 3 times the price guide book said, and more than we actually had. So we started to negotiate. Eventually we paid about half the amount he quoted, which was still quite expensive, but we weren't too sure what we could do. We checked with the hotel how much it should cost and they said about half of what we had paid! Oh well, you live and learn I guess. Lets just hope that the return journey doesn't cost so much...

After checking we decided to head out and look for some food. The hotel recommended going to Kan san road, which is the main tourist road in Bangkok. We arrived there as they were taking part in Earth Hour which meant there were hardly any lights on. It was still really busy but kinda dark. We got some pizza from a stall and called into the local Boots store, yep the Nottingham based Boots! We then headed back to the hotel exhausted and ready for a good nights sleep. (We managed to get slightly lost on the way back, it's hard navigating in the dark!)

P.S. - Thank goodness the room has aircon...

Day 41 - 27th Mar 2009

We started the day with a great breakfast at the hotel, you could get eggs cooked to order with a selection of items you could add in. Or pancakes and waffles. There was also the usual baked beans and hash browns, along with eastern style breakfast dishes of curry, rice and noodles. I tried a small amount of chicken curry with rice which was very nice but slightly bizarre for breakfast.

We then headed towards the bus station by the ferry terminal, along the way we saw more temples and interesting buildings. We decided to get a bus to Penang Hill, where you can then get a furnicular railway to the top. As we waited for the bus we meet so people from Australia so we chatted with them. They were also going to Penang Hill. After a while of waiting, they don't seem to have a timetable so it's just a case of waiting till the bus you want comes along. The buses all seem pretty new and modern so they the journey to Penang hill was very comfortable. A single journey costs about 30p, so also very cheap.

We got the train to the top which cost a whole 80p for a return ticket! The view from the top is pretty good and it's actually a long way up. We got some food from a stall and looked at a temple and a mosque. It seemed weird to bother building a temple and mosque when there isn't really a lot else up there.

We decided to walk down the hill to the botanical gardens, the guide book said the walk would take about an hour and you can then get a bus from near the gardens back to Georgetown, where we're staying.

So we walked, and walked and walked. In total it must have taken us about 2 hours! Plus the road was really steep so it was hard work walking down. Also just over halfway it started raining and I don't mean a light shower, it really rained! We got soaked. We did however see some wildlife, a small red snake, monkeys, giant ants, a few butterflies and a couple of big spiders. Looking back it was fun to do but to be honest at the time I was wishing we'd just got the train down!

We didn't really look round the gardens but we did find out that there wasn't a bus stop there. We decided to walk to the main road where we were sure they'd be a bus. Obviously there were taxis we could have got but that would have been the easy way...

So we started walking and it started raining, again. Eventually we got to the main road and as the rain got heavier we sheltered under what we hoped was a bus stop. We wrong about this, it wasn't a bus stop, a helpful lady pointed this out and told us were we could get a bus from. However the shelter was good for not getting wet so we waited for the rain to pass. The puddles on the road though were getting bigger and bigger so every time a car came past we were worried we would get soaked. A man also offered to take us to Georgetown for about £2 but he was waiting for his son so we didn't take him up on the offer. When the rain had stopped we walked down the road to the bus stop the lady had said and after only a few minutes a bus came, we weren't completely sure which bus we wanted but figured it was going in right direction so it would do. This bus though was nothing like the mornings bus, it was old and hot and packed. We got seats next to some people, well we sort of perched on the edge of a seat, and then more and more people got on at various stops, until it was completely full, people stood anywhere they could. The bus had obviously seen better days but it seemed to do the job, even with it's wooden floor! Eventually we ended up back in Georgetown and began to recognise where we were. We got off not far from our hotel and walked back, stopping to buy a couple of samosas en route.

When we went to reception to get our key we looked really out of place from the colonial surroundings. I could see the receptionist wondering if we were really staying there! We went for a swim and then had dinner at the hotel, it was a buffet with free wine or beer. We took full advantage of the free drinks and also got our money's worth of food, this included a chocolate fountain! Which we were sat pretty close to, perfect...