Cambodia

Hi everyone!

So i left vietnam for bangkok and spent 2 days in bangkok just relaxing and sorting out my visa for China before i was to meet my friend Jo (who i met in Oz) and travel to Cambodia with her.

Our flight left bangkok at 7am, so we decided that teh best thing to do would be to sleep in the airport the night before! Lets jsut say not much sleep was had as the airport is full of metal chairs and they crank up the aircon!!

We flew into Phnom Penh and went straight to a guesthouse. Once checked in, we set about seeing all the sites of the city in one day so we could make a speedy exit for Siem Reip. We hired a tuk tuk for teh day and visited the Killing Fields and S21 Prison Museam, as well as the Russian Market. The killing fields and teh museam were horrible but an eye opener and i'll tell you more about it when I come home.

That night we crashed into bed at around 7pm due to the fact that we had had next to no sleep the night before. The following morning we took the bus to Siem Reip (which took almost all day because the Cambodian roads are not so great) and arrived around 4pm. We cheked into a really nice guesthouse, right in the centre of town and we went out for a lovely dinner at night. Siem Reip has a huge tourist industry because it sits right next to the famous Ankor Wat. Therefore, there are loads of lovely cafes, restaurants, bars etc. The only downside to Siem Riep is that you get hassled quite a bit by the little kids who try to sell you stuff and actually will not leave you alone and physically follow you down the street for about 10 minutes until you eventually shout at them!

The following day we had out tuk tuk driver pick us up at 5am to go and watch the sunrise over Ankor Wat. Well.....it was cloudy, so we didn;t see much of a sunrise, but it was nice and cool at that time of day so made for a pleasant walk around teh temples. Ankor Wat is amazing - loads and loads of temples in ruins, all scattered, and you drive from temple to temple, and they are all completely different. Now me and Jo get bored quite easily, so after 5 hours we had had enough of temples (some people spend a full week going round them), but we really enjoyed what we saw, and unfortunately, the pictures do not do it justice.

After deciding that one day at Ankor Wat is enough, we tried to book a flight out of cambodia, but only one airline runs the route out of siem reip and it costs a fortune....so, we were left no choice but to travel to teh border of thailand by land. This would not normally be a problem, but the road to the border is so bad, that buses break down every day, and seats in buses break because of all the potholes! (Its all very corrupt...the airline pays teh government not to fix the road so they will make more money!) Anyway, we decided to get a taxi to the border (3 hours for 30 dollars - not bad!) and although it was bad, it wasn;t as awful as everyone made out to be. From the border we got in a nice minibus back to bangkok (for the THIRD time now!).

Now, we decided that we had had enough sighseeing and needed some time relaxing on the beach, so we went straight to the airport in the hope that we would be able to get on a flight that night down to the islands. Of course we had noluck, and it was another night sleeping in the airport!! After numerous starbucks, surfing teh ent adn a thai massage, we finally decided to get some sleep around 2am. At 5am we were back at the ticketing desk asking to be put on the first flight to the islands...so off to Phuket it was!

We have been told bad things about Phuket, so decided to head straight to phi Phi. (Althought, flying into Phuket was absolutely lovely..such amazing views! and, it looks like a lovely place, but anyway...) We arrived at around 8am, and got ataxi to teh harbour and then on a boat for 2 hours to Phi Phi.

I'm in Ko Phi Phi now, and its lovely...this was one of the islands hit by the tsunami so there is a lot of construction work going on, trying to rebuild it. Nonetheless, it is a lovely island...not as idyllic as Fiji, but its hot, sunny, and has a beautiful beach. What more could you ask for?

xxx