Siem Reap, Tonle Sap Floating Village, Cambodia

Our last day at Siem Reap has mostly been a relaxing one, exploring the town and countryside. We hired our friendly tuk tuk driver for one more day, and started off in the busy part of town, watching the rush hour happen around us. People here mostly travel by bicycle or scooter, often with at least three people on the back of one. Everything is transported on the scooters, from pigs, both dead and alive in cages, huge bundles of fruit and veg, long lengths of wood, pipes to sheets of glass.

We headed out towards the floating village of Tonle Sap lake but drove through several small villages on the way and stopped to photograph interesting houses and water buffaloes. As we got out lots of children followed us around, and I took their photo. They seemed to have lots of fun seeing images of themselves on the playback screen on my digital camera.

Next we drove to the lake of Tonle Sap, and although I didn’t take the one hour boat ride to see the village, Al did. Instead I wandered around the narrow strip of land with floating houses on either side. I dídn’t like the place very much. To start with I was plagued with children asking for a dollar, without any small goods to offer, and I thought it was a shame that in the past enough irresponsible tourists had done so for them to expect it. Instead I practised a few new phrases of Khmer and took their photographs.

The area was incredibly dusty and the people lived in very basic conditions - although they had houses, and casual stalls selling food and veg, as well as a primary and secondary school, so they weren’t living in complete poverty. Their way of life appeared very demanding. They didn’t have anything to offer tourists, apart from the boat rides lower down the road, and I recieved a lot of stares and felt the locals wondered what I was doing there. The people weren’t as friendly as other parts of Cambodia, but in a way I felt they weren’t use to seeing tourists in their community, apart from further down the road in boats that visit a floating village 4km away, so most tourists probably ignore this part. While I was there I bought a whole bunch of about 20 small bananas for $0.25 and was then followed by small children who kept asking for one, so I gave most away. It surprised me in a way that when the children saw I had a bag of bananas they stopped asking for a dollar, as I suppose they could eat it rather than giving the money to their parents to spend.

After lunch we went to the old market which was full of local goods at reasonable prices. The market was huge and filled with colourful stalls from Cambodian silk to fresh fruit and veg. I spent over an hour or so looking through the stalls and bought a patchwork bag, several scarves with varying silky textures and wooden beaded bracelets. The women at the market stalls were friendly although some were understandably keen that I bought from them, as most of the stalls sold similar silk scarves or bags.

We came back to the hotel and thanked the tuk tuk driver and paid him for the last four days. We thought he was probably about 25, and chatting to him earlier I found out that he had three children, two young boys and a girl. For western standards he seemed so young to have a family, but he appeared proud to talk about the subject.

We had a nice meal at the guesthouse and settled up for our food and accomodation. As I’ve been writing this post we’ve had very heavy rain outside but its finally stopped. We plan to go out for a cocktail to celebrate the New Year, followed by an early night. We have a taxi booked for 6.30am tomorrow morning. Happy New Year.

The Bayon Temples, Cambodia

We went to the Bayon temple early to photograph the soft yellow morning light on some of the 37 stone heads. The heads depicted figures from Buddhist mythology and were very striking to look at. The temple comlex itself was also architecturally impressive. After wandering around we found a monkey sat on one of the stones and several people were having their picture taken with it so I did as well! It was quite old, and just relaxing in the sun.

We went around Angkor Thom and saw the Terrace of the Elephants which included several walls of sculpted elephants. The time and detail it must have taken was amazing. On the drive back we saw lots of monkeys sitting around by the trees which were funny to watch. The baby monkeys were quite cheeky and came right up to me looking for food. We also saw elephants carrying people to and from the temple.

After lunch our tuk tuk driver took us out to Bakong (13km east) - one of the older temples of Angkor. Other than a tourist bus which came and went, we practically had the whole temple to ourselves. It was set in a really beautiful location with palm trees and a huge moat around the outside. There was also interesting brick buildings around the outside of the temple with big holes in for cooking and a tall chimney. The outer wall was covered in funnel webs, which was interesting to see.

It was another really hot day today so by this point we were both quite tired, but stopped off at Banteay Kdei to take some pictures of stone carvings and then briefly onto Ta Prohm, where the surrounding jungles contain nearly deafening birds, that make a continual high pitched, shrieking sounds. It took us ages to work out the strange sound was birds, we heard it on and off for the last few days. We returned back to our guesthouse for food after a long and exhausting day.

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Another early start this morning as we drove to the temple of Banteay Srey. There was a beautiful sunrise and I could feel the warmth of the sun as it rose into the sky. The 37km journey was lovely, and I felt so happy as we drove alongside fields of water buffaloes, villages with palm trees and wooden houses, with people cooking and children happily playing in the gardens. They all waved at the tourists and some tried to sell us things or asked for pens or sweets but I just smiled and said the Khmer for no thank you.

We arrived at Banteay Srey at about 8am and were surprised to find tourist busses arriving at this remote temple just after we had. However, the temple was beautiful and I took some photos. Next we went to Banteay Samre and although the temple was nice, I was too hot and tired to appreciate it.

After lunch we went up in the Angkor balloon. To start with it kept moving awkwardly upwards in semi circles which was quite scary, and we were told to hold on. After I got over the initial fear and was able to let go of the sides to take photographs I enjoyed it. It was tethered to the height of 200ft, looking out across Angkor Wat. It was amazing looking down on the land and once up there I was fine. The decent was so gradual I didn’t notice to start with.

We went back to Angkor Wat to take more photos and found some kids playing in the lily ponds infront of the temple.

We decided to stay for sunset but I couldn’t find anywhere to frame it against on the lower level without the trees getting in the way, so I decided to climb to the top of the inner tower. The first time I tried I got half way up before deciding it was too high and went back down, but after walking around and I knew the sun was about to go down and that we wouldn’t be here again for sunset, I told myself to just keep going and I climbed 25m of steep, semi eroded stone steps. There was probably over a hundred people on the top level, watching the sunset so I found a level part to stand on and take photos.

As soon as the sun set temple staff told us it was time to go back down at which point the height really got to me. Thankfully one of the guides carried my things and I went down one of the stairways with a hand rail. This took several minutes as going down backwards I couldn’t see the steps and had to feel them with my feet first. Also it got dark really quickly. It was quite a relief to get back to the guesthouse.

Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm, Cambodia

Angkor is amazing. The scale and complexity of the temples built nearly a thousand years ago is stunning. Nothing compares to these structures. As the tuk tuk drove closer and the track to Angkor Wat was in sight I felt a sense of excitment and suspense as to what I was about to see, and felt really excited when I recognised the silouette of these famous structures from pictures I had seen.

I have been reading about Angkor for months and it felt quite surreal to begin with, being in Cambodia and seeing it with my own eyes. I instantly loved Angkor Wat, which reminded me of a lavish castle, except on a much bigger scale, and in a very different style to anything I had seen in Europe.

Angkor Wat is beautiful and very complex, with several layers of dark stone monuments before accessing the central part, combining the outer and inner walls with the main temple, which included its own courtyards and corridors. It took around ten minutes to walk from one side to the other, through the middle of the temple (1 km), although I spent several hours exploring every corridor and pathway. I even came across a monk who was my age and asked me where I was from and that sort of thing.

By late morning we were both hungry and our tuk tuk driver dropped us back at the guesthouse for lunch. We were glad to rest for a while as it must have been at least 30 degrees today and was really sunny up until midday. Thankfully the only part of me that’s burnt is a small strip where my mosquito wristband was, as I didn’t put sunscreen there, but nothing too bad. We enjoyed a nice noodle and chicken lunch.

After lunch we were going to have a balloon ride over Angkor Wat but it was too cloudy.

Our next destination was Ta Prohm, a temple filmed in Tomb Raider, famous for its intricate stone monuments build in 1186 and forgotten about. The area is covered by jungle where many of the temples are swallowed by tree roots and the stone carvings are so old looking. Just to see the way nature has taken over, I found Ta Prohm equally as impressive as Angkor Wat as it felt so abandoned and I felt like an explorer, viewing something lost for such a long time.

We’ve both decided that we like it here so much, that we will stay an extra day and return to Bangkok on the day of our train to Krabi as opposed to the day before. This means spending New Years Eve in Siem Reap, which is definately a good thing. I feel happy about an extra day here. It’s a really nice place, a lot more relaxing than Thailand. I’m enjoying it.

Thailand / Cambodia Border

If the journey was easy perhaps I wouldn’t feel like I’ve achieved much, and in this case I feel like we’ve achieved a lot!

We woke at about 5am this morning in Bangkok, where the rain was torrential. Apparently it had only been raining three hours and some of the roads were covered in nearly a foot of water. We grabbed a metered taxi and asked to take us to the skytrain, which was just around the corner, but as usual we found a stupid driver who tried to take us to the train station which also had the skytrain. Eventually he turned around and dropped us at the nearest station, so we payed him for what it would have cost had he gone there to start with, and onto the sky train. This was the straight forward part as Bangkok does have a great metro and skytrain system. Clean, efficient and signs in English. We got off at Ho Chit, near the nothern bus terminal.

The guidebook says go to the northern bus terminal and there are busses every hour to Aranyprathet, the Thai border to Cambodia. So we carried the heavy luggage down the stairs and to the bus stops. It was all very complicated and different people told us different bus numbers. Everything was in Thai and nobody could speak particularly good English, and at one point I thought we were never going to make it. However eventually someone pointed us in the right direction and we got a bus to the bus station and bought a ticket for a bus to Aran.

We left at 7.45am and arrived in Aran at about 12.00. We didn’t have any problems getting a tuk-tuk to the actual border and were met on the Thai side with English speaking officials, specially to help tourists. I got the Thai exit stamp and have a Cambodian stamp in my passport. I was pleased as I got the visa for $20, no scams or ‘tea money’ requests. After taking another tuk-tuk to where the taxies departed from we found a German couple to share 3 hour ish taxi ride with.

As soon as we were driving out into the countryside I had a really positive feeling about Cambodia. I think I like it more than Thailand. Our guesthouse (Two Dragons) is luxurious compared to what we’ve been used to, and I’ve just had a lovely meal of freshwater fish with lemon grass and an orange sauce. Despite it feeling like such hard work to get here and travelling for nearly twelve hours it feels good. Tomorrow we shall see Angkor.

Ayuttaya, Thailand

After the previous post we took a tuk tuk to Chiang Mai’s train station and stocked up with bottled water, crisps and generous slices of banana cake which was only 10 baht! We got there early and found some seats to sit down on and were shortly joined by a couple from South Africa who were catching the same train as us. They had travelled from Singapore, up through Malaysia to Thailand, and told us about the lovely beaches and diving in the south.

As the time came for our train, we walked down the platform to where the sleeper carriages would be (the trains are very long) and sat down next to an American couple travelling with a young child. It was beginning to get quite cold by this point and the train still hadn’t turned up, and then there was an annoucement that the train was delayed and wouldn’t get in until after midnight. Somehow we chatted and waited for another three hours until the train eventually did turn up and they attached the sleeper cars.

Instead of getting to Ayuttaya mid morning, we didn’t arrive until early afternoon. At the station we were constantly hastled by tuk tuk drivers wanted to charge huge amounts to drive us around the temples. Instead we followed a map walked a km or so to Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol. It was so hot and Ayuttaya felt like just another modern city with ancient temples hidden away, around the edge of the old capital. The parts we saw were cleaner than Bangkok, busy and not particularly pretty.

The temple was interesting. Built in 1593, it was huge and well kept. I climbed to the top level of the main tower and looked down on rows of Buddahs and other temples. There seemed to be lots of local people who lived on the edge of the park and maintained the grounds. The temples were covered in pretty, blue butterflies.

In the evening we ate at noodle stands alongside the station and I even found a stall with cakes and tried some tasty coconut bread pastries. We took a train back to Bangkok and stayed at the SV Guesthouse in Sukhumvit. The area was a lot nicer, but more expensive and was filled with big tourist hotels and shopping malls.

Doi Inthanon, Rice Terraces and Hill Tribes...

Today has been amazing. We went on a tour to Doi Inthanon, about two hours to the west with a few other people. It started off in the normal fashion with half an hour at a huge waterfall, and then back in the minibus and up to the highest mountain in Thailand. It was quite cold and misty and all the Thai people were shivering although we found it quite mild. Our minibus driver was a lunatic and did some really doggy blind bend style overtakes but the roads were just about wide enough for three cars to pass! It was very scary though. The roads themselves were in good condition and no horrible sheer drops too close to the road.

We saw the King and Queen Pagodas which were each based upon a mountain with jungle in the surrounding area. It was very beautiful. After this we went to a village for lunch and had lovely Thai food. They brought out lots of nicely flavoured meat and vegetable dishes which we shared, followed by slices of fresh pineapple and melon.

Our next destination was The Royal Project, which was an agricultural place, with a pond, good view, pretty waterfalls and funnel web spiders webs on the trees! I wandered off ahead and saw several monks in bright orange robes gathered around one of the viewpoints, so I walked up and asked if they could take their picture too. After which they pointed me to a stone to sit on and gathered around asking if I could be in theirs! One of the monks was given four digital cameras and proceeded to take the photos. I found this so amusing. They were from a fairly remote part nearby and I suppose they didn’t see many white girls with curly hair!

Finally we got back into the minibus and drove to a Hilltribe village. We saw some girls weaving and they were selling beautiful scarves and drapes. I thought this was a really positive thing, as they were selling their products directly, which would encourage the local people not to grow opium if they could make money by other means. So I bought a gorgeous woven scalf. At this point I started chatting to an Australian lady on our tour, and we walked around the village.

The huts looked like wooden tree houses, except with TVs. We saw a path out into a rice field which was amazing. We asked the guide what time we were due back and he said it was the last stop and as long as we wanted, so we walked probably for fifteen minutes along the paddy fields, and said hello to the local people working on the land. They were polite but it’s hard to know what they thought of foreigners. I don’t think they cared too much. The paddy fields were huge, and we walked along raised areas with small sections of rice below and then followed a trail along the hill. Forested mountains covered the background and it was an incredible experience to see. I have really enjoyed today. Only a few times have I rememberd that its Christmas. Anyway we have a night train in a few hours and will be in Ayuttaya tomorrow morning, followed by Bangkok in the evening.

Doi Suthep, Thailand

After having a lie in this morning we took the songthaw to Doi Suthep, just out of Chiang Mai. The journey itself was a bit scary as we climbed a mile up along twisty roads and the drivers tending to go for the middle in either direction! But it was worth it as we went into the temple and took a lot of photos and saw monks and asked them if I could take their photo which I did. There were a lot of locals there making offerings of flowers and incense, practising Buddism.

A few hours later we walked along a steep road on the edge of some jungle which was amazing!

Last night we booked a tour for tomorrow, so I shall be spending Christmas day on the highest mountain in Thailand, as well as seeing hilltribes, waterfalls and countryside. I’m really excited. I never thought I would be doing something like that for Christmas last year. I shall write about that tomorrow as we will have a few hours to spare after getting back, before our night train.

Al got bitten on the night train when we came here so I hope that doesn’t happen again. Anyway Happy Christmas, will write something tomorrow…

Chiang Mai, Thailand

We arrived in Chiang Mai at just about six this morning after leaving Phitsanulok. The train itself was ok, the bunks were comfortable with clean bedding and it was a bit strange as all the sleeping bunks were packed in one after another. I had the lower bunk which was nice. I tried to sleep but got very little of it as every time I finally felt I was about to the train would pull into a station with about an hours interval, and for some reason when the train stopped moving I became awake. The tracks were really noisy too. For some reason I had this idea that trains were smooth since they could only travel on tracks but all night long you could hear the clickety-click. It wasn’t too bad though and next time I’ll be prepared with earplugs and an extra layer of clothing since there was mesh at the windows.

When we pulled into Chiang Mai it was just getting light. We got a tuk tuk to the guesthouse which took forever due to the driver dropping some people off on the other side of town, and then stopped outside the wrong guesthouse - ’seven sun’ instead of ’sarah’. Eventually we got out a map and he redelivered us to the right place. It’s quite nice. It’s clean and they do a good breakfast and we have an adequate bathroom and shower.

We took the day fairly slowly and walked around the city and saw a pretty white temple. Well, several white temples in a huge field.

We found the Hill Tribe Foundation shop which sold products made by the local tribes and they recieved part of the money. I personally think that’s better than going to see the local tribes as they parade outside their huts for tourists to take pictures of like a living zoo. So I bought a black fabric bag with colourful patterns woven in.

This evening we’ve just had fish and chips at a place run by an English guy. It was quite comforting, and a change from Noodle soup or curries that we’ve been having since arriving. The food here is really good though. We might go to the night market tonight, suggested to us by some people we bumped into on our way to the internet cafe, who we met yesterday at Sukhothai. Tomorrow, hopefully we’ll be going further north into the countryside of Doi Suthep to find waterfalls and to get away from the city.

Sukhothai, Thailand

It feels like I’ve been in Thailand for ages, despite it only being our third day here. On Tuesday we left Bangkok behind and took the train to Phitsanulok which took about six hours. We were a bit disapointed that the glass in the windows had a black mesh layer in the middle which made it really difficult to see anything, but the seats were comfortable and there was food included in the journey. The only really horrible part was the toilets, but I’ve survived!

I felt really overwhelmed when we arrived at Phitsanulok. Maybe part of it was to do with getting not much sleep, as my body still hasn’t completely adjusted to the time zone, and because it was so busy and confusing. We walked to the bus stop as we needed to get to New Sukhothai and were very thankful to find an English guy who knew which bus to get as the place names are in Thai writing and there was a lack of timetables. It was such a relief to get to the guesthouse after trying to navigate our way through unfamiliar cities in the heat of the afternoon.

The guesthouse is so beautiful. (Ban Thai, New Sukhothai) We stayed in a little wooden bungalow, with a comfortable bed and a clean bathroom with a hot shower! There was a restaurant area under cover and it has a very alternative feel to it. The area with the bungalows was surrounded by gardens and quite hippy-ish in a way. It was all very fun apart from in the night when there was a lot of rustling and scratching around the windows and roof, and I was slightly worried about whatever it was getting in. We weren’t sure whether it was a monkey, although there were also lots of cats at the guesthouse, but it was making a lot of noise! Eventually it went away and we went to sleep.

Today we went to old Sukhothai to see the temples. It was really amazing. Lots of Budhas and huge Wats with beautiful lakes with pink waterlilies. We got up just after six am and got to the temples fairly early so we were lucky to get beautiful photos without crowds of people in the way. It started off feeling quite cool but by mid morning it was very hot. Anyway I’ve really enjoyed today and getting to know the real Thailand because we both hated Bangkok. Although the people are nice there its pretty grim and I couldn’t get any positive feelings from the place. When we visited Koah San Road that felt more relaxed but it was just a tourist bubble.

People live in theses amazing wooden houses here and its been so interesting to see a different way of life. They are also really friendly and helpful. We came back to New Sukhothai this afternoon and took some photos of the streets and the caotic sense of travel. Which reminds me, we went on a Songthaw today, which is like a truck with open sides and bench seats so that was a fun experience. When we came back from the temples loads of school kids got on and I was amazed they could fit so many people in this vehicle.

Later tonight we are going to get the train north to Chiang Mai, which I’m looking forward to. We arrive at 5.35am! Anyway it should be good. Will write more then.

Bangkok, Thailand

I’m in Bangkok finally, after a long day of travelling yesterday. Despite what I’d heard Jordanian Airlines were fine and we had two good meals on both of the flights, which was a nice surprise as the ticket said no meal and I’d bought a donut specially! The airport in Amman looks so modern and again I don’t have anything bad to say about them. The second part of the flight went very slowly especially as there was only two hours of darkness before dawn and I found it hard to sleep when it’s light outside. However while it was dark I looked out of the window and saw the new cities that have been built in Dubai, so that was amazing. There were whole islands outlined with lights and long coastlines illuminated in artificial shapes. It was quite stunning to look down upon.

We arrived in Bangkok and headed to the train station only to find the next train to the city was in two hours time, so we shared a taxi with a couple from Holland. The journey was an experience, as the driver pulled over at various places to ask other drivers for directions and seemed quite confused to start with as to where we wanted to go, and we seemed to take a very indirect route but we arrived near our hotel in the end!

My first impression of the roads was caotic. Cars, busses, tuk-tuks and motorcycles swerve between lanes and there’s lots of beeping on horns and general madness. However despite the lack of road rules, drivers do tend to look out for each other and are patient with other vehicles, and even people pushing trolleys of fruit in the road.

This morning we had our first experience of a tuk-tuk, complete with a scam. We decided it would be a good way of getting to the Grand Palace. Originally I thought about getting a river taxi however one look at the waves and I decided against it! So we waved a tuk-tuk driver, thinking that it would be a cheap and quick way of getting around. We mentioned a Wat nearby instead of the Grand Palace and he seemed to understand where we wanted to go. The ride was enjoyable. Tuk-tuks are a bit like a motorbike with a raised carriage, and felt like a go kart with a chauffeur! However, the driver pulled over and a taxi driver talked to us - it seems all taxi rides involve stopping part of the way and chatting to other drivers. Our driver said he needed petrol and would drop us off at a shop near the station and would be back in ten minutes. It turned out that if we bought something he would get a voucher for free petrol, and then he would take us to the Wat for the price we’d agreed on… So we had arrived at the infamous gem shop. We found an English speaking assistant who explained about the petrol voucher scheme and continued to show us around the store. After a few minutes we said thank you and left with the intention of telling the tuk-tuk driver we weren’t interested in buying any goods, however he hadn’t returned and we weren’t very impressed with being dropped off somewhere other than where we wanted. We were also on the wrong side of Bangkok too. After asking other tuk-tuk drivers how much, and trying to find a bus we flagged down a metered taxi. Eventually we arrived outside the Grand Palace.

The Grand Palace was quite amazing and I took loads of photos. There were lots of monks in orange robes wandering about. When I went to Prague I was constantly in persuit of trams to photograph, but I think my new thing is Monks.

From there we have walked to Khao San Road which is much more relaxed than where we’re staying but seemingly fake, since there is nowhere else quite like it in Bangkok and none of the locals live like that.