The Road to Cambodia

This is a rather belated blog as we've been struggling to get a good enough internet connection and we haven't spent much time in any one place, but here goes...

We left the luxury of our Thai beach island behind and hit the road to Cambodia, which is reknowned for it's extremely rough roads and corrupt border police - not great ingredients for a 9 hour bus journey! But we made it without even paying the semi-official surcharge (ie back-hander) at the border. Our destination was Siem Reap, which is the nearest town to the temples of Angkor Wat.

We had another dose of culture shock when we arrived - it's a much poorer country than Thailand, with mainly dirt roads and little infrastructure. The upside of that is that we were able to eat for $1-2 each at the nightmarket (cashpoints dispense American dollars, with the local currency only used for amounts of less than $1). 

We spent our first day in Cambodia at an orphanage. We were invited by one of the teachers, who we met the previous evening. There were 35 kids living there, ranging from 3-17 years old. It was incredibly humbling seeing how they live, sleeping 3 to a bed with yet more sleeping in their classroom due to lack of space. But we had a fun time playing with them, and even taught an impromptu 1 hour English lesson. In the evening the orphnage puts on a show of traditional Khmer dance for tourists, which gives their main source of income. We watched them making some of their costumes, and were amazed by how good the show was - some of them were very talented.

But the main event at Siem Reap was the temples. It's difficult to describe how vast the site is - something like 25 square miles containing 100 or so temples. The largest has a moat 200m wide and the central building is maybe 300m square, built from stone blocks, almost every one of which is carved or decorated. Our favourite temple was Ta Phrom, where the jungle has been allowed to take over. Huge tree roots are forcing the stone blocks apart, gradually disassembling what man created 800 year earlier - very atmospheric.

Pre Rup at Sunset

A small section of Angkor Wat

Ta Phrom

We also bumped into a really cool Dutch couple - Heman and Marieke - who we'd previously met in Thailand, and had a lovely meal with them on our last night in town.

After Siem Reap we spent 7 hours in a bus with the Cambodian equivalent of MTV blaring out on the way to Phnom Penh where we spent 2 nights. We visited a torture prison (Tuel Sleng) and killing fields created by the Khmer Rouge during their oppression of Cambodia. 100 victims a day were tortured and killed at these sites alone. Truly chilling and only 35 years ago.

We've now left Cambodia behind us and arrived in Phu Quoc, an island off the Southern cost of Vietnam. We needed some chill-out time after a couple of cities, and Phu Quoc has amazing beaches. More on that next time...

Hope everyone who reads this is well. We enjoy reading your comments, so keep them coming!

Marc & Liz

...You join us in hot n steamy Bangkok, about to leave the city...

We decided that after the madness that is Bangkok, we needed somewhere to relax and chill out. We chose Ko Chang, which we would later discover means elephant island, a mountainous, jungle covered island a few hours from Bangkok.

But before leaving Bangkok we met up with my (Marc's) cousin Alick again. He took us for a nice meal and then on to a blues bar, where we consumed a whole day's budget on alcohol whilst listening to a great band. Top night - thanks Alick!

At 7:30 the next day we left Bangkok with sore heads, but glad to be escaping the maelstrom. We boarded a 50 seater coach. Surprisingly this wasn't like the pictures we'd been shown of the type of bus Lady GaGa might use to go on tour in. Instead it was more the kind of bus that Slade might have gone on tour in during their heyday. But, despite its age, it was air conditioned and we had plenty of room to stretch out as their were only 2 other passengers. Following rides in the back of 2 old pick up trucks (which double as local taxis) and a nice cool voyage on the good ship rustbucket we arrived at our hotel on Ko Chang.

Luckily our hotel exceeded all expectations, nestling between jungle and sea. There were 2 pools - one overlooking the beach and one nestling in the jungle - and our room was very luxurious, not at all backpackerish!

Straight away we saw loads of wildlife - butterflies, frogs and lizards and were later joined at the pool by a snake. We even got to feed the monkeys that come down from the jungle to into the grounds were the staff lived.

Most of our time on the island was very relaxing. But on the final day we went on an elephant trek into the jungle. We sat on a seat on the elephants back with our mahout riding on the elephant's neck. These amazing creatures can go just about anywhere. It was relaxing once we got used to the swaying motion. We arrived at a river and disembarked (or whatever you do with an elephant). The highlight of the trip was washing the elephant in the river and riding her back ourselves with the mahout walking along beside.

We're also loving some of the new fruit we've discovered. Durian are indescribeable, but great. Rambutan are juicy and hairy but too much like hard work. And there are some lovely, tiny, sweet grapefruit-like things which grow in a bunch. We don't even know what they're called, but they're mighty good.

We've just arrived in Cambodia. Our journey here and what we do will be our next entry.

Hope everyone is well. It's good to hear your comments here or via Liz's Facebook.

Marc & Liz

Balmy Bangkok!

Hello blog-readers


It's hot as hell here :) So far we have seen bats the size of magpies, more street food than you can shake a stick at, which have included locusts, grubs and cockroahes. Marc ordered a pint of locusts but I just settled for one cockroach ;) Seriously, this is a very interesting city which doesn't seem to sleep. Everything is relatively cheap and so far we've eaten some pretty good food (no insects as yet)

Today we visited the Wat Pho Temple and the Grand Palace, which was pretty fantastic we thought! Everywhere we turned there were buildings covered in sparkly things. Each one would have been amazing in isolation.

There are quite a few scammers hanging around outside, so you have to have your wits about you! We took our first tuk-tuk ride and tried out the river ferries  - we're still trying to decide which is least unsafe!

RATS! Frankly I've seen two too many ha ha. We saw one of them this evening in an outside restaurant. Well, to be honest we never saw it but rather heard the screams of a fellow westerner who clapped eyes on it whilst sipping a mojito :) 
Yesterday we visited Marc's cousin Alick, who lives on the outskirts of Bangkok, we met his lovely wife and uber cute daughters. They were hosting a BBQ and we ate Halloumi cheese from Norfolk and some yummy Thai food too.

Tomorrow is going to be a 'sorting out' kinda day in preparation for us heading off south east to Ko Chang, which is a small island with beautiful beaches. We're really looking forward to having a relaxing few days after the madness of BK.


We've uploaded a few photos for you to take a look at and we'll blog again when we get the chance xxx