Photos

Finally found a net cafe here in Siem Reap with a connection that doesn't crawl, so here's some photos -

[ Ko Samet & Bangkok, Thailand ]
[ Siem Reap, Cambodia ]

McGee's guest blog

Lots of people had said that the kids in Cambodia are pretty intense. Every where you go you are accosted by like 20 of them trying to sell postcards or water or whatever. So we were bracing ourselves at the temples for the trauma of poverty stricken children begging for money. The thing is, it is overwhelming but actually these kids are kind of amazing. Even as they are saying ''i'm poor, please give me money... i need to go to school' (which of course is true), they are grinning and running off, totally aware of how they are manipulating the tourists. Á common one is ''when you come back you buy my postcards okay, you promise' then when you get back they accost you saying ýou promise you buy my postcards!'. One kid even swore at Josh (the f word no less!) for not buying her water. Then she ran off kakking herself laughing. So yeah its true, they are poor but they are also smart and funny and sharp as anything. We saw one little boy, only maybe 7, practicing his 'sad' face for begging in front of his friends and then them all laughing when he did it well. I can see how some people get fed up of it but really, how switched on these guys must be to know how to do this! Like i said, really really cool kids.

We decided to stay an extra day in Siem Reap today because we are totally knackered from our epic tour of the temples yesterday. We downgraded rooms from a $13 one to a mere $4- so bloody cheap. There's no windows in the room but there's a toilet so we are happy.

Tomorrow we are moving onto Phnom Penh at 6:30 am. More adventures to be had soon- yay!

Siem Reap

hello all! mcgee here guest blogging for Josh...

So after a sleepless night of listening to the band playing asian
country rock til oh my god way past when any normal human could listen
to it we got up to make our way to the border town. Everyone had told
us how we needed to watch out because the Cambodian border agents are
completely corrupt and will always try to scam you out of money so we
were kind of wary when we got there of what they might ask for. Plus
also we had no idea how to get to Siem Reap but since things had
worked out well so far we decided to hazard it.
Queueing up in the foreigners section we wedged ourselves between
couple after couple of old white menn with thai bride types (seriously
its more uncommon to see and old white man with an old white woman
here). I think they go for the gambling that's in the weird no-mans
land between Cambodia and thailand called Poipet. It's like half a k
wide and all it contains is the border controls and 4 casinos.

We got a share cab from the border to Sien Riep which is where all the
Angkor temples are- or should i say the Tomb Raider temples. Driving
through it was clear that close as it is to thailand, Cambodia is very
different. For a start tarmac roads are kind of rare and scattered
along them are shanty towns and empty fields that don't look like they
can grow anything. It's a hangover from the Khmer Rouge era when
basically the whole place had the sh*t bombed out of it. For anyone
who doesn't know much about it (like me and Josh) the whole Pol Pot
regime was completely devestating to the country and there was
something crazy like two million people killed in just a few years. He
killed everyone,literally everyone, who was educated at all, or who
was politically opposed or even who wore glasses. So now Cambodia is
building itself back up again but it's still pretty scarred. As a
result of all this though there is this strange thing where all the
business people are incredibly young, like our age. You definatley get
the feeling that the young people are driving the country forward.
Every market stall and tuk tuk and restaurant, even our hotel is run
by someone under 30.

Today we went along to the temples which was an epic tour of like 12
temples including Ta Prohm which is totally overrun with jungle vines
and giant tree roots. Basically its seriously cool, but only if you
are there and can see it so i won't bore you with the details. Just
maybe a picture or 20.

Aranya Prathet

We stayed a night in this small Thai village that sits on the border or Cambodia. The crossing closes at 5pm so exhausted, we found ourselves a guesthouse. We met a Swiss couple who were really nice and had just come across into Thailand from Cambodia. We had dinner with them at this pub that is literally next to the house we're in. By that I mean we can see onto the pub's elaborate stage from our bathroom. The pub has this weird clashing set of themes. Firstly there's Manchester United flags everywhere and two screens with the football on. Also there are cow skulls on the walls with lightbulbs sticking out the eye sockets. There's a massive flag hung across the ceiling that says State of California.

The stage has a bunch of amplifiers and a drumkit. Eventually we head off to get some sleep before our big day of border crossing action tomorrow. At about 10pm this live band starts playing. Loud. We can hear everything. I can only describe is as Thai country-rock. They are all awful at the instruments in their own unique way. The drummer is playing the same beat and the same fill frequently. The bass is doing the same rythm, same notes oh god it's terrible. The vocalist. Dear lord. His wailing Thai voice with American-country sensibilities. The guitarist isn't bad. This goes on until 1am. Turns out it's the full-moon party this particular evening. In most party hubs in the country people celebrate by getting trashed on a combination of herbs, fungus and alcohol and dance till the sun comes up. Not in this otherwise sleepy border town. Here it's all about country-rock performed to the 7 members of staff and at the most 2 guests.

Journey to the border

We departed Ko Samet today bright and early to head towards Cambodia. The rickety boat took us to the shifty sea village on Ban Phet. Last night the guy behind the bar (who was from Laos) told us that Ban Phet was closer to Cambodia and that we need not backtrack to Bangkok. We learned that we could find our way from Ban Phet to the border. Once we got off the boat, We went to the only tourist establishment to find a way to our next destination. They quoted us a ridiculous price to get to Cambodia. We took a minute to sit down and think about our predicament. We declined the minibus to the border (the only one for the day) and tried to come up with something. Fortunately for us we changed some currency at a little bar owned by an American guy. He told us that we could get public buses and make our way to a town on the border where we could stay for the night, then make our way across the next day. We got on motorcycles with our rucksacks and headed for the freeway which wasn't the best way for me to have my first motorcycle ride but in a couple of minutes we were on the side of the road waiting for a public bus which came promptly an hour later.

We took this piece of crap for a few hours to a bus depot town called Chantaburi. On this bus we were treated to some excellent progressive Thai rock. We got on another bus for 4 hours which took us to the middle of nowhere, and another bus from there to Aranya, a small Thai village that sits on the Cambodian-Thai border. Fumbling our way to this point by pointing and trying to figure out what was going on at any point was pretty hilarious, and so
very cheap.

Ko Samet

After a 4 hour bus journey out of the city we arrived at a small fishing village. There we leapt fearlessly off a jetty onto a small boat which was filled way past max capacity with people as well as goods which included mussels and chicken feed. 45 minutes later we arrived on the island of Ko Samet.



We spent the day under a large umbrella on the beach with the sea in front of us and a delightful little bar behind us. Lots of swimming, eating, drinking and a whole lot of nothing.

It's pretty different from Bangkok. We got to ride on the back of a truck packed with Thai people which took us to one of the 5 main beach areas on the island. We were able to find a guesthouse and head to the beach pretty quickly.

This bar/restaurant on the beach is awesome. What a great place to have dinner. We had the best seafood fried rice ever. Easily. Also a whole, fresh red snapper that continued to cook on a little grill on our table, and fresh prawns. All on the beach under these little lanterns. Definitely one of my favourite dining experiences.

Ko Samet is an excellent place to chill-out, unwind and scrub off any memories about riding the tube, or having a job. Now we're going to decide whether to go north or head to Cambodia.

Khao San

Hey everyone. We've moved to another guesthouse in the very bustling Kaosan road region. The atmosphere here is completely different to the old place. For starters it's cranking 24/7. It's the main area in Banglamphu and it's the most crowded. The street we're on is lined with guesthouses, all of which have bars that sprawl out onto the street. There are excellent food vendors here, and just about anything you might want to buy will eventually be rolled up to you on a cart of some variety.

This is the best meal I've had so far. It's pork with garlic and lemongrass and all kinds of things. So damn tasty. We've gone through all the favourites, pad thai (I think they just call it pad here in case you were wondering Jeremy), seafood fried rice, tom yum. And the snacks, oh god the snacks. I had this cluster of deep-fried prawns for desert one evening and that was espescially good for a post-dinner treat.


Very educational signs on guesthouses have taught us that there's this tuk-tuk scam about in which drivers will say that they'll take you ANYWHERE YOU WANT for 10baht, except you have to induge him on one stop. This stop happens to be at a tacky jewellery / tailor store. Also there are GANGSTERS about that want you to go visit the temple with them so that they can then sell you a bunch of services that they won't actually provide/you didn't want anyway. We encountered both these things and thanks to the poorly written signs were able to stay clear. A couple of other travellers we met weren't so lucky and were treated to what I hear was an excellent store selling perfectly-crafted garments and gemns the likes of which they have never seen in the western world.

By day the streets are packed with stalls and people looking for bargains, and tables and chairs where you can eat your vendor purchased meals. By night it becomes a street-long bar area with make-shift bar carts showcasing their alocholic beverage selections. One sign read 'VERY VERY STRONG COCKTAILS" and another "FUCKING GOOD BEER". Once we had our fill of that for the night we treated to our guesthouse bar where the music started off with chill-out mixes and ended with some pretty offensive throwbacks from eurodance classics circa 1995. We played backgammon (it's like an old, analogue, wooden version of Starcraft as I understand it) and checkers while drinking cheap beer and whiskey. Then all of a sudden this baby elephant came by so I pat him for a bit.

Bangkok is pretty intense and although our four days here have been really great we're heading out to an island to hang out on the beach for a while. We've booked a boat tomorrow morning to head over to Ko Samet. Really looking forward to checking that place out, I've heard really good things and it's exciting heading anywhere we've never been. I'm expecting seafood.

This is what I had for breakfast today. Something involving pork, rice, and the biggest prawn I've ever consumed. One of the amusing highlights from the nightlife was a bar packed with foreigners singing along to this Thai acoustic guitarist / singer who was doing sing-a-long friendly covers of classics such as The Final Countdown and Umbrella. Hearing his female Thai backup singer yell "ella.. ech.. ech.. ech" was beautiful in its own special, piercing way. There's this radical dude sitting at the reception behind us wearing a bandana chatting up the receptionist. He just asked her for her name and now he's sort of working that, what time she finishes her shift, how she's going to be out partying out with them tonight, and her occupation into a horrible drunken song that he's belting out on an acoustic guitar he's just purchased. Funny stuff.

Yesterday there was this drunk hippie dude chatting up these two girls and he asked if he could smoke some of their shisha. The one-sided conversation that ensued was Curb Your Enthusiasm levels of awkward for the two girls.

We're in Thailand

Hey everyoneWe're here in Bangkok in this area called Banglamphu. It's really busy with street vendors selling very tasty food and we're staying at a really nice guesthouse. Tomorrow we're going to move onto a different guesthouse an hour away where all the backpackers tend to stay. We went there this afternoon to explore more of the city and it's pretty crazy. The food is just delicious, we've been eating at markets and little street vendors. We took a tuk tuk ride back to where we're staying which was quite thrilling, weaving in and out of traffic on a vehicle with no door. I feared for my life at several points. Good times.

We have this room at the top floor of the guesthouse which has air conditioning and boy is it necessary. It's so hot here. We talked to a couple of other travellers and did some reading and we think we might head over to Ko Samet, which is this little island with amazing beaches where we will probably spend a few days hanging out before we contemplate our next move. It's stange being in a place where English isn't really understood by the locals. We're getting by, lots of pointing mainly.

We got some cheap clothes and I got my head shaved in an attempt to deal with the sudden change in temperature. It's busy but it has a pretty friendly vibe to it.It's taking a while for our minds to unwind and realise that we don't have a job to go to or a tube to catch at any point. It's really, really relaxing being here. There's a lot to learn and it's really exciting. I just learned how to haggle after some practice and got some very cheap memory cards, so photos will soon follow.