Monday 28 July 2008

It's Raining....again.

What I've failed to mention since we have been in Asia is that it has been raining - a lot! I didn't want you all to think that I have been having a bad time so haven't mentioned it. I don't mind if it is roasting hot and sunny during the day then rains in the late afternoon which it has been like quite often but today it has rained all day. Quite exciting though. Two coconut trees came down, one of them smashing through the roof of a bungalow next to where we were staying originally and then one falling onto the roof of the restaurant where we are staying.

Must be something to do with the mask and snorkel that i bought this morning...

Its a Dogs Life



Pics - Dogs on our beach Ao Tanote and our current home.

After a 12 hour journey from Bangkok by bus and ferry we arrived at the Island of Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. The bus was definitely the best I had been on over the last few months and if only i had been of average height I'm so sure that i would have had more than 2 hours sleep. Upon arriving on Koh Tao we opted to head straight over to one of the less populated bay on the island - Ao Tanote. The Lonely Planet tells us of bungalows for as little as 200 Baht! Wooohoooo! So over the rough "road" we go on the back for a 4x4 to a lovely bolder strewn bay (I may have borrowed that from the lonely planet ....sorry). Unfortunately for us I haven't been paying much attention to the lunar cycles lately and as it happens 6000 "fullmooners" ascended upon the island the day before from Koh Phan nang and took all the budget accommodation....even the non budget accommodation by the looks of it but we found a bungalow right on the beach for more than twice what we intended on paying which served its purpose and was actually pretty sweet! we have since found a cheapie off the beach which s basic as you like so perfect for us. I am now being stalked by Scorpions. We found one in our bathroom yesterday and Ania delt it a swift death with the bottom of her flip flop.....phew. I can now poo without fear.

Ao Tanote Bay is only good for a dip at full tide as you cant go too far without stepping on coral. This of course makes it great for snorkeling and you can hire gear most places along the beach. There are loads of fish to see (as well as sea cucumbers - yuck) and some guys we were talking to even saw turtles a couple of days ago. This is of course a diving island with loads of dive schools to choose from. I should probably do one as it is kind of cheap for what you get but still its well above budget. I will however buy a decent mask and snorkel tomorrow.

Righto!

3 Pics From Bangkok.




You can buy a Lamborghini while you shop for a mocha mint frapachino in the Siam Paragon Mall. Fortunately for me the Lambo store was closed at the time of visiting

There art everywhere.

Khao San Road for the uninitiated at a particularly quiet moment.

Tuesday 22 July 2008

Bangkok

I've been in Bangkok staying around the Kao San Road for over a week now. I had a few good nights in a nice(ish) hotel with a swimming pool etc but now we are off the main drag back into backpacker budget bliss. Oddly after being here a while you start to recognize people and it seems the only other people who have been here as long as I are single males in their late 40s...living the dream! I can only imagine what they get up to here. I'm only here due to my toilet habits at the moment. Its strange after traveling all this time and finally getting to to what i would call civilization that i get these problems.

We had a great day yesterday in the luxury of the Paragon Mall in Siam Square. We watched The Dark Knight in glorious IMAX! It was awesome! Literally! It was so nice to have some luxury though i did receive some bad news....

It seems that the ship with all of our stuff will be docking in Melbourne on August 29th. Now that is only 5 weeks away and I don't want to go to Australia just yet. Actually....I don't really want to go at all! So it looks like the next 5-6 weeks we will not be doing any tourist nonsense but will just be at the beach having a holiday as much as possible. Not sure where we will be or where will fly from to get to Oz as we don't want to spend all of our time rushing and traveling. We may even just stay in Thailand for the whole time. Ania has a 3 month visa while mine is running out it seems so I will need to extend it.

We leave for Koh Tao tonight.


Woooooohooooooooo!

Thursday 17 July 2008

Still Alive


I know that some of you millions that tune into this incredible example of literary genius are getting a little tired of only seeing photos of Ania all the time.

Trust me - I know exactly what you mean! ;-)

So here I am, still alive, just for you.

Give peace a chance.....my hair is growing back too.

Lets Get The Hell Outta Here!



So we had had enough of temples. Time to get out of here and head to Thailand! Yay! Oh....a slight oversight. We met some Polish people who had a few problems with the border crossing into Thailand. It seems Polish people can't get a 1 month visa on arrival at the border like the rest of us. They can get a 2 week visa on arrival at the airport but that is it.

So Ania had to send her passport off to Phnom Penh and wait nearly a week (as it was the weekend) to get her visa. As much as i thought Siam Reap is a nice little place there is not much else to do there once you have had enough of the temples and as we have spent every single day together since April 16th its time for me to disappear to Bangkok and give us both a well earned break from each other.

Wooohoooo!

My door to door bus journey from my hotel to the Khao San Road didn't exactly start off as I expected but after a motorbike, shared taxi and then a minivan from the border I made it to Bangkok...and I couldn't wipe the smile off my face as we approached the circus that is Khao San Road.

The pics are of the traffic approaching the Cambodian/Thai border. The road is notoriously bad and there are rumours that one of the airlines is paying money to keep it that way.

Even More Rocks




I can't seem to be able to upload as many pics for each post as i would like.

More Rocks






Yes she is pretending to be Lara Croft. This is where Tomb Raider and Raiders of teh Lost Ark were shot ya know.

Angkor!






The Great Angkor Temples! Oooooooh! Ahhhhhhh!

Actually - Its pretty impressive. Probably the most impressive thing that i have seen so far (this trip) mostly due to the vast number of temples and the grand scale of it all. It's comparable with Rome for wow factor even though everything is around 1000 years old. You can get either a 1 day, 3 day or 1 week pass to go and see these and you definitely need more than one day to check out the even the just the main ones. Its a very, very hot day out which encourages you to start early but personally starting early just means you can finish early because there are only so many piles of rocks that you can see in one day. We ended up spending 2 "half days" out there. We are pretty quick around the sites! These are not the first things I have ever seen in my life so I'm not about to immerse myself in each site for hours on end. In and out. But - I was still impressed and though there was no beach there I'm still glad that i took the time to go and see. Thanks for convincing me Dylan!

Siam Reap is the town that services the hordes of tourists and its a pretty neat little place. There is a great street called "Pub Street" and you can guess what thats all about as well as having plenty of great places to eat and even shop. I bought an opium pipe. It's awesome.

Snooker Ville




So we decided after seeing so much death and destruction that we deserved a well earned rest at the beach before hitting the temples of Angkor. Sihanoukville is a mere 4 hour bus ride south from Phnom Penh which made it even more enticing. Its not a bad place to stop off at if you are in Cambodia. You could really turn this into a holiday! We stayed in some pretty nice bungalows with a balcony and hammock with a great view of the water. Our first day there we went for lunch at the beach and to our surprise we were greeted with menus by our french friend Adrien who we shared a train compartment with from Ulanbator to Beijing where we also stayed in the same hostel for a few days. Small world. From then on The Dolphin Shack was our place to be and as Adrien told us....It never closed! After a couple of nights there were four more people that we had met traveling in town so we had a pretty good bunch to hang with till the small hours of the morning. On particularly surreal night consisted of those mentioned above, two deaf cambodian girls, a couple of gay prostitutes and clients with a couple of regular prostitutes all at the same table communicating in all kinds of languages and levels. To top it off as i stumbled home at 5am i felt a sharp stinging sensation on my foot. I looked down to look for some kind of cable or wire only to see a black scorpion scurrying away from where i was standing. At this time of the morning, drunken and stoned i had no idea if i had 45 minutes to live and should be heliported off to the nearest hospital or if i should just go home and pass out. I chose the latter and the next morning there was just a small lump and a small amount of pain....much like a bee sting....though i suspect it may have killed the average man.
Nothing beat that particular night but we did end up staying for 6 or 7 days. I lost count in the end. everyone we knew left and it was raining a bit too much for our liking so with the magic gone we left for Siam Reap.

I know the beach pic is not too enticing but that is the view from Dolphin Shack and it was good believe me. The other pic is Ania and Pin the funky, lovely, Cambodian/Thai, deaf bar chick.

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Tuol Sleng






This is at the Tuol Sleng Museum which is where prisoners were tortured and killed. remarkably they kept fantastic records of everyone who came here and there are hundreds of photographs of the prisoners which are fantastic portraits. The cells with the bed in them were used for torture and there is a photograph above the bed of the prisoner post-torture. Its pretty gruesome.

Killing Fields




Quite interesting. They were very naughty killing all those people you know. Basically there are two parts of the experience. Firstly the monument where they uncovered all the bodies which is what most people know about as the skulls are on display and then there is Tuol Sleng which once was a school before it was taken over and used as a torture and killing center. Its all very reminiscent of Auschwitz but this all happened with most our lifetimes.

Phnom Penh




Capital of Cambodia! One thing that we noticed was how much more expensive it is here than in Vietnam. The US Dollar is quoted for all prices which means that they must round everything up to the nearest dollar. The people seem pretty nice. Quite different to Vietnam and in our sugar coated backpacker world everyone speaks plenty of english.

More Mekong





Mekong Delta






As we spent extra time at the beach we were running out of time. I wanted to enter Cambodia via the Mekong Delta and only had two days to do it so we booked a trip with a night on the boat traveling up the river overnight arriving close to the border in the morning. It was a pretty good thing to do apart from our guide for the first part who was a right James Blunt and was in love with the sound of his own voice...I hate it when they get a microphone out to talk to 12 people....you always know that they are going to break into song.

Saigon





We finally get to Saigon. Its another busy city and we only really see a few blocks of it which is all backpackers and sex tourists. We did an out to to the Cu Chi tunnels where the Vietnamese people hid and fought with the Americans. There is lots of anti American propaganda which we all love plus i got to fire an AK47 which was....fun for a few seconds though i didn't win a teddy bear or anything.