The Cambodian Job

Today (16th Oct) is mine and Emma's 6 month travelversary!!! Happy days. However, sadly that means that we now have only 2 months left. BOO HOO i hear you say!
We have spent the last couple of weeks in Cambodia and now have 2 days left in Phnom Penh before flying back to Bangkok to meet you (that is if you are mum, dad or liz. If anyone else is still reading this thing then just ignore that last bit).
Our time in Cambodia started off with a run-in with the Cambodian mafia. As advised by our trusty guidebook we avoided the Bangkok to Siem Reap buses as they are notorious for scamming people. However, said guidebooks' advice has resulted in a large number of people arriving across the border in need of transport. This has fueled a scam to rival the Bangkok-Siem Reap bus scam. After crossing over into Cambodia your travel options are limited to but one choice- "THE COMPANY". Basically the deal is you either pay the extortionate $12 for the bus or you get followed around by members of "the company" who exert their authority over anybody else who is willing to offer you transportation in order to make you pay more. As we had time on our side we thought we'd try to outlast them by sitting down and having a beer. At this point we were six having been joined by Gary, Katrina, Neil and Rosie. Contrary to popular belief beer does not solve all your problems and time, it seems, can be a fickle friend- it 'did an Italy'*. Our next plan was to split up in order to lose the company and try to find some transport without their 'help'. Myself and Gary set off to find a taxi for a reasonable price. We thought we had succeeded, however, it turned out that we had been followed and by the time we got back to the others the company were aware of our illicit taxi deal. After three and a half hours and with our good friend Percy Veerance on our side we finally managed to agree to $30 for a taxi between the 6 of us. It was a bit of a squeeze putting 7 people, 6 large backpacks and 6 small rucksacks in a taxi but we just about managed and were on our way to Siem Reap.
* a reference to Italy's switching of allegiance in 1943.

Wat a lot of temples
Siem Reap is the main base for visiting the world famous temples of Angkor, butt loads of big ol' temples built between the 9th and 13th centuries. On our 2nd day in Siem Reap we hired some bicycles and went exploring some of the temples. If you were so inclined you could spend weeks there and still not see everything but one day was enough for us. Twas a good day and we saw the main attractions such as Angkor Wat -one of the most inspired and spectacular monuments ever conceived by the human mind, Bayon -a Jayavarman temple in the centre of all things temple and my personal fave, Ta Prohm -an Indiana Jones sty-lee temple complete with crumbling structures and oodles of sprawling vegetation.
While in Siem Reap we also went to the landmine museum which is rum by Aki Ra(a former child soldier for the Khmer Rouge) who estimates that he has personally cleared around 50000 landmines. Despite such efforts there are still a staggering 3 million mines still to be cleared from Cambodian soil. wowzers.
From Siem Reap we got a boat ride through stilted villages and across the very flooded floodplain of the Sanker river to Battambang. It's a very frenchy feeling town, although many of the buildings have seen many better days. From Battambang we hired a motorbike to ride the rather muddy road to the temple and killing caves of Phnom Sampeau- our first real look into the savage brutality of the Khmer Rouge regime.
After just 2 nights in Battambang we got a bus down to Phnom penh to stay by the side of the aptly named lake Kak in the North of the city. The following day we visited the Toul Sleng museum, a former school converted by Pol Pot's regime in 1975 into the detention and tourture centre -security prison 21 (S21). Of the 14000 people held there only 12 lived to tell their tale.

The wheels on the bus break down and down
After a 2 night stay we headed south to Kampot, a relaxed if slightly deserted feeling town near the coast. Unfortunately when we were just half an hour away from our destination the bus broke down. As we were waiting for the bus to be fixed/a replacement bus many people took other transport into Kampot. By the time the replacement bus arrived it was just myself and emma waiting. When it reached us the replacement bus' driver was a bit over enthusiastic with the turning around and managed to get the bus stuck in the mud! leaving us at the roadside with 2 broken down buses. Eventually the bus company paid for us to get rides into Kampot on motorbikes. The plan was that we would take a trip to Bokor national park but sadly the day we had the trip booked we were both ill and so didn't make it there.
As i said we are now back in Phnom penh. Since returning we have visited the famous killing fields of Choeung Ek where approximately 17000 men, women and children were executed between 1975 and 1978. It is a truly sobering experience (not that i was drunk i hasten to add!) walking past mass graves and seeing bones and clothing protruding from the soil. The central memorial holds some 8000 skulls in a glass case to forever remind people of the atrocities of the past. There is a great deal of animosity in Cambodia that not a single person has been tried for the crimes of Pol Pot's regime. However, legal processes are finally in action with trials of former high ranking Khmer Rouge officials due to start next year.

Wow, would you believe that has taken me more than 2 hours to write. You better enjoy reading it! There are more photos online although many are duplicates cos i couldn't be bothered to sort them out. Just time for me to say a big hello to big Chris B. there. you happy now? also hey to everybody else, i hope you are all on top of the world looking down on creation.

xx Matt xx

One night in Bangkok

And you've got yourself a very predictable blog title. However, although we are about to spend one night here this blog is actually nothing to do with Bangkok as we have only just arrived on a night bus from Koh Tao. But that bit comes later, for now lets start at the beginning.

In the beginning
There was rain -and quite a lot of it! After staying one night in Hat Yao we set off in the morning for Ko Lanta. Rather than book transport all the way there we decided to use public transport in an attempt to save money. After a taxi, bus, taxi, bus, minibus, boat, minibus, boat, minibus, van journey taking twice as long as the straight through option we were somewhat questioning the wisdom of the morning decision. Calculating our savings to be about 50p concluded lesson 1 of travel in Thailand -Just book a ticket all the way to your destination cheapskate!
In Koh lanta it rained, we got very wet driving around on a motorbike and then it rained some more.

Millions of beaches (beaches for me)
Beaches come in a can, they were put there by a man in a factory down town. Anyroad, I digress, after 3 nights of rain in Ko lanta we headed north to Krabi where it rained and we were starting to think that coming to Thailand in the monsoon season was probably not the best plan in the world. However on our 2nd day in Railey (near Krabi) the rain finally abated and we had 4 days of good weather to enjoy the views, walking, climbing, kayaking and beaches in the area.
After that it was a switch over to the East sieeeede to Koh Phanghan (you may have noticed that i can't quite decide whether to use Ko or Koh before the islands name and i doubt i ever will as I'm not sure Thai people have even decided yet but anyway I'm getting side-tracked again. right Phanghan. As neither myself nor Emma are very good at doing nothing on beaches we decided we decided to keep moving around in order to see more of the island. So for the 5 nights on Phangan we stayed at 4 different beaches as well as passing a fair few others on the way. Oh dear i forgot to close the bracket) and we seem to have doubly decided along the way, nevermind i think mistakes add character to a blog.

Dancing in the moonlight
Our last night on Koh Phanghan coincided with the full moon party in Hat Rin. It is basically a big ol' beach full of people with different types of music and various rather dangerous fire shows including drunken people walking across fire and drunken people trying to skip with a giant burning skipping rope. They say that the event usually attracts between 8 and 30 thousand people, sadly the crowd just wouldn't stand still for me to count them.
After Phanghan we moved up to Ko Tao for a few nights. The plan had been to do some diving but cost/time/if i do a padi now when will i actually ever need it considerations meant that we settled for a boat trip around the island with a fair whack of snorkeling mixed in. We also hired a motorbike to explore Tao's rater dodgy roads. Apart from that we just relaxed in the islands' relaxed atmosphere.

Yesterday morning we left the room to John the baby gecko and headed up to Bangkok. And here we are. There are a few more photos on the website.
xx Matt xx