Monday, 13 October 2008

HCMC aka Saigon

After the rough ride there, we found Ho Chi Minh City aka HCMC aka Saigon really quite pleasant. We met Tony on the bus from Phnom Panh and bonded over our shell-shock, we were also staying at the same cheap-but-alright Hotel. So we did some sightseeing together, visited the market and the War Remnants Museum and park, we also ate at ‘Pho 2000’ where Bill Clinton ate (!!), it had tacky pictures of him sitting there and eating his pho, but it was actually really nice cheapish food which we enjoyed (although note, the free wet towels they put on your table at the start are not free!).

The city itself was much cleaner than anything in Cambodia, it felt a lot more developed and we certainly got hassled much less (no ‘tuk tuk sir! Lady!’ when we walked down the street). The parks were lovely and always had people in them doing exercises or dances or strange slow sword dancing! There are lots of people in conical hats in Vietnam, it makes for lovely pictures! There are also lots of girls wearing traditional long dresses with floaty trousers, its really pretty and the school uniform (I think its for older girls) is the same but completely white and its so nice to see them cycling down the street. The most noticeable thing about Saigon was the motorbikes everywhere! There are 6 million people in the city and 3 million motorbikes and you know it is you ever try to cross the roads on foot. Everyone wears helmets which they don’t in all of the other countries we have been to nearby and they have the coolest helmets ever! They have whole helmet shops and they look like pretty cloth hats in every style of hat you can think of, but there’s a helmet underneath!
We also took a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels. Our guide (Mr Bean is apparently the best was to pronounce his name in English) was a Vietnamese veteran who had worked on the American side during the war. It was really interesting to hear his point of view as he was still troubled by the fact that he is not accepted by the Americans or the Vietnamese any longer, he had worked at the same base as Oliver Stone (who later made lots of war films), he didn’t like him though and ranted about how bad the films were and said he didn’t like him. He worked helping the Americans fight the Viet Cong as he knew the land and he recovered bodies from the field, he later spent years in prison where the communists ‘f**cked with his brain’. He was quite messed up, but his tour was excellent (if a little intimidating!). We saw the multitude of traps that the VC created in the jungle and the teeny holes that snipers hid in. There was also a chance to fire real guns, Tony had a go and I couldn’t even watch because once you got anywhere near the guns the noise was deafening, it was really scary! At the end of the tour we got to go down into the tunnels themselves, they were so small that we had to crouch down and sometimes crawl the whole way, they were hot and sticky and mostly pitch black, it was really scary and we were all shouting down the line to each other to warn of what was coming next. We were glad to be out of them at the end, but more glad that we had done the whole stretch without coming out of any of the emergency exits!

Other than sightseeing we made the most of the happy hour at one of the rooftop bars overlooking the busy streets, and ate lots of cheese sandwiches.

Saturday, 4 October 2008

Cambodia-Vietnam Border Crossing Fun

So we got the bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City direct, although we ended up booking the cheapest bus as all of the others were full, we thought this may have been a bit of a scam at first, but once we hit the traffic miles and miles from the border and found out that it was the first day of the last week of a month-long festival in both Cambodia and Vietnam we realised we had really chosen the wrong day to go! The journey was horrible! Our bus had a nice mix of tourists – English, Australian, Finnish, Thai, Japanese and Vietnamese and also some Cambodians. The traffic jam at first was quite jolly, there was the usual amount of interesting stalls by the roadside selling food (and scarily spare parts for vehicles), there were loads of smiley people crammed into vans who smiles and waved each time they pulled up beside us, but then we saw a sign that said that Phnom Penh was still really near and then, at the hottest point in the day, our bus broke down in the middle of two lanes in an already hectic road. We waited hours for them to fix it and when they gave up we waited for another bus to come from the other direction. The bus was over 40 degrees inside and I’m sure it was hotter outside in the sun. The poor people from the other bus were kicked off their bus and we got on and traveled back for about half an hour (against the traffic that was moving about a metre and hour (no joking), and then, with the help of the police, did a u-turn after halting all of the traffic and bumping into a van containing about 50 people. We didn’t reach our abandoned bus again for another few hours and a journey that should have taken 6 hours, actually took 17 hours! We got to the border after it had closed at about midnight after a ferry ride in the dark. At the border some of the people didn’t get off to go through customs, in the end we heard rumours that they didn’t have passports or visas and so were being smuggled illegally into Vietnam. Once in Vietnam we speeded to HCMC. When we got to the city we were all half asleep after the awful journey when we were woken by a bang, screams and a terrible grinding crushing noise from under the bus. I looked out of my window to see a motorcyclist in the road with blood everywhere. I have to say that then I became a total loser girl and almost fainted and cried. It was the early hours of the morning and it was chaos. Friends of the victim rushed out from nearby and screamed with shock, he was then rushed away and carried by loads of people (each grabbing a limb or a handful of his clothing) and bundled into a taxi. The police soon arrived and the people without passports made a quick exit while the drivers hauled all of their illegally imported beer off the bus and hid it in the dark of the street.

All of the backpackers also made quick exits by taxi to the backpackers area. It was a crazy night and after we re-grouped we all found places to stay and slept off the awful day!

Phnom Penh

We didn’t enjoy Cambodia’s capital, we got a cheap slow bus with lots of locals who offered us food (especially these cool small packages made of bamboo leaves which contained rice in coconut juice and beans) we also went with a Vietnamese couple who we met at our guesthouse in Siem Reap, they were lovely and we stayed at a nice(ish) riverside area guesthouse with them. We didn’t ever get to the backpacker area of the town, but what we saw we didn’t like, there was the strip of riverside that was really touristy – relatively expensive restaurants and internet cafes with Westerners inside, and then the surrounding streets which were very busy with lots of street stalls selling various things and lots and lots of barbers cutting hair by the roadside, but there were also piles and piles of rubbish everywhere. We’ve smelt some bad things, but walking down some of those streets was so revolting. It drew our attention once again to the lack on understanding the people have about their environment. It makes sense really because when they country has struggled through such hardships and is still so poor, I suppose the environment doesn’t really seem like an important issue. But it was so sad to see, even in the rural areas, people just throwing rubbish into the street, or worse, people eating food out of plastic bags (in SE asia everything is eaten out of a plastic bags – rice, soup, drinks…) in boats and then dropping the bag overboard. Its such a pity that such a beautiful country is getting spoilt so quickly.
Anyway, we did visit the museum which was lovely and situated in a very well-kept area along with the Royal Palace and independence monument and other important buildings situated on open boulevards with grassy parks which people fly kites in and have picnics. It was a very strange contrast to the people living in shacks in the nearby market and families sleeping rough by the river. We took a tuk tuk out to visit the killing fields, it was so harrowing. Probably the most shocking thing we have seen in all of our travels. The first thing you see is a huge monument, must be about 100ft tall which is packed with hundreds of human skulls which were found in the pits. The scale of the killing was terrifying. As we started walking through the fields we could see pieces of bone and lots and lots of clothes sticking out through the soil as not all of the site ha been excavated yet. It was so disturbing as it only happened 30 years ago and it was awful to see bits of Khymer scarves poking out as everywhere you go in Cambodia the people have their scarves around their necks, on their heads, tying up baskets or hats. I was going to buy a scarf as a useful souvenir, but after that I couldn’t look at them without thinking of all the people in those pits. We learnt how the Khymer Rouge (mostly made of boys aged under 15) poured DDT onto the heaps of bodies so that local people wouldn’t smell the stench and to kill those who were buried alive, they also had a magic tree’whefre they hung a loudspeaker which played sounds to drown out the wailing of the people. If that wasn’t sad enough we then visited the Tuol Sleng Museum (S21), which was a former school that the Khymer Rouge used as a torture chamber. It was so harrowing seeing the photos of all the poor ordinary people who died there and then worse, seeing the vile tortures they were put through and the photos they then took of them dead. We walked through the torture rooms where the last victims were found and then saw the tiny cells where the people being questioned were kept. I have to say I knew nothing about the rule of Pol Pot and the Kymer Rouge before I visited Cambodia. But learnt that the Khymer Rouge led by Pol Pot were mainly little boys who first scared all of the people out of the cities (Phnom Penh was deserted for decades) and then tried to kill anyone who had any sort of intelligence or education and favoured the people from the countryside who could work the land. They then put the whole country into slave labour and tried to make everyone s illiterate and unknowing as possible. It must have been an awful time to live in and it seemed like the rest of the world did nothing to help. Theres still lots of landmines and victims of the war and of the landmines left and its all so sad.

There were parts of Cambodia that we really loved, but it’s such a difficult country and once we had got our Vietnamese visas back, we left straight away. I would like to go back and see more of the country one day, but not for a while, it was too sad!

Cambodia – Battambang and Siem Reap

From the islands we went back to Bangkok and then flew to Siem Reap. We then ended up in Battambang (pronounced battambong) due to a series of unfortunate incidents. We didn’t like it, it was grotty and dirty with too many motorbikes and we might have liked it more had the lonely planet not made it sound like a picturesque colonial riverside town. We did have a really cool (but very expensive) journey there by a long dusty unmade road. It was bumpy and chaotic but we saw so much cool stuff like live pigs, chickens, ducks and even calves being transported by motorbike and millions of people crowded into cars and trucks. It was amazing to see how people transport themselves and all their belongings along such a crap road! We also saw people selling loads of cool food and lots of houses on stilts that had been flooded. The people of Cambodia (apart from the evil touts and rip-off merchants) are such amazing people. They have been through so much awfulness in their lives and yet they can give you the most warmest smiles that make you want to cry with joy (seriously) and they love laughing and joking.
We stayed in an awful place (Bus Stop guesthouse) with an owner who wanted to rip us off more than we already had been. We did, however, have a brilliant tuk tuk ride out into the countryside surrounding Battambang. Along the red mud roads and rice fields children ran out of their houses waving and smiling at us and shouting ‘hello! hello!’and ‘bye bye!’. It was so sweet, we loved it. We visited Phnom Sampeon, a wat on a mountain. Our guide was a little boy named Pee, he took us up the beautifully scenic mountain telling us stories all the way up without looking slightly out of breath and refusing any drinks or snacks we had whilst we died of exhaustion. He was a really intelligent little boy who knew lots about the area and about Cambodia politics and was working as a guide to fund extra lessons on English grammar, he also spent the summer working in the rice fields. He looked so young but he was actually 12, just tiny! I don’t know how ethical it was to pay him as our guide, but he sounded like he was doing it out of his own initiative and I hope our money went to his education in the end. At the top of the mountain there was a great view of the other mountains nearby (chicken mountain, duck mountain etc), and the wat which had been used as a prison during the Khymer Rouge rule. We then visited the nearby cave which had been used to kill and ‘dispose’ of the unwanted prisoners. There was an alter in the cave and a pile of skulls of the dead. It was quite disturbing. Pee taught us lots about his country and we sadly said goodbye as we left in our tuk tuk.
We then drove to Wat Banan (Banana to the locals), which was some impressive Angkorian ruins on a hill up some impressively long steps. Our driver then took us to a monastery which had a large Banyan tree in its grounds. We didn’t understand why we had stopped until he gestured to the trees and we saw hundreds of large fruit bats roosting there. It started to rain and a few of them flew about, their wing spans were immense and it was an amazing sight. Our driver told us that the only reason they are there is that the Cambodian people (who will eat anything) catch the bats and eat them (taste good – better than chicken apparently) but due to Buddhist monks not being about to kill things, they are safe in the grounds of the monastery. Also the Banyan tree was the species that Buddah found enlightenment under (I may have got the tree name wrong, but it was that sort of tree anyway). We then went to see the bamboo railway which is a kind of makeshift form of transport made of a bamboo platform on wheels which drove along the mainly disused railway track powered by a small engine. It was amazing to see so many people crammed onto it with all of their animals on their way to the city.
Back in Battambang proper we dined at the White Rose and the Smokin’ Pot. There were lots of NGO-types there and it was really sad to see little street kids begging for food. One little girl waited until the waiters had turned their backs and then went around empty table emptying half finished drinks into a little plastic cup and then sharing it with the younger children. I saw her mix beer and coconut milkshake together. It was heartbreaking how hungry she was and so I gave her half of my food which she wolfed down.

The best part of being in Battambang was the 7 hour bat ride along the Tonle Sap (and part of the Mekong I think) to Siem Reap. It was brilliant, a few tourists and a lotof locals crammed on to a tny boat. It had been raining lots so the river was high and we passed villagers fishing and washing in the rivers, small villages in the water with their houses on stilts. Their inhabitants relaxing in their front rooms on hammocks as it rained and traveling about by boat. Children ran out of their houses to wave and shout hello and we stopped to eat at a small shop in the water. As the course narrowed the drowned tree and foliage ended up in the boat as the boat struggled though, the crew had to get machetes out to cut a path out for us and had to dive into the water a few times to untangle the rudders from the lotus plants. It was raining a lot by then and the branches splashed water into the boat which made us all laugh. It was loads of fun.
When we landed at Siem Reap the ground had turned to mud. We slipped and slid up the muddy banks with our rucksacks until one of the tuk tuk drivers who descended on the boat as it docked, told us it was easier if we took our shoes off. So we did, and it was and it was really funny squelching through the ankle deep read mud as fast as we could to avoid the rain.
We were staying at the charming Palm Garden Lodge, we were welcomed with wet towels and a welcome drink, all the staff wore pretty uniforms and it was like a proper hotel (even though we were paying a pittance to stay there). The only downside was that it was just out of town on a muddy track, it was hilarious trying to navigate its slipper self with all its pot holes and bumps especially in the dark because there were no street lamps! Although they did actually offer a free tuk tuk so everything was great!
Siem Reap was brilliant! It has a couple of reeeeally touristy streets, which are actually really nice and there are loads of nice restaurants and bars and many happy hours (a jug of beer for about a quid!). There were also some street stalls where a delicious meal can be bought for a dollar! Theres a huge day market selling everything from strange food to silks and clothes and a night market which has a small cinema where we watched a documentary about the Kymer Rouge.
We splashed out on the three day ticket to Angkor Wat, on the first day we hired a tuk tuk and did the ‘mini tour’, we started off with Angkor Wat itself, we didn’t really find it that impressive, although it is very beautiful, set behind its immense moat. We then visited Angkor Thom and absolutely loved Bayon (the one with all the faces), it was so vast and beautiful and its hard to think that they’re so old. It started raining really heavily when we were at the Elephant terrace and soon the place as deserted, but we were hardcore and carried on looking at the temples and reading our guide book with only a flimsy parasol to protect us. We sort refuge in one of the Prasats sour Prats, there were a few other people perched in other prasat doorways hiding from the rain and we had one to ourselves. We then went to eat on at a stall nearby. I forgot to mention, every time you stop at a wat millions of kids rush out with silks, fruit, umbrellas, drinks and books to you. All you can hear is ‘Lady! You buy! Only one dollar, only one dollar!’ ‘Sir! Cold drink! You like cold drink? Where you from? England, capital London, Lovely Jubbly’. Its awful on so many levels, its annoying after a time and makes you feel really bad because we’re not rich but they think all Westeners are rich and you feel bad for not buying something because they are so happy when you do, but mainly its really heart-wrenching because most of these families are so poor and instead of begging they’re selling stuff and when you buy something it really seems to make a difference I you. They know that you’re more likely to give in to a small child so they’re made to do it young and some of them are so hard and ruthless and sometimes fiercely competitive for your custom and you wonder where their childhood has gone. Its also quite amusing because they only seem to know money in one dollars, so as you walk away apologizing that you cant buy whatever is on offer instead of lowering the price, you get offered more and more for one dollar, one little boy offered Liam 6 wooden flutes for one dollar! We did get some good bargains from them though, stuff that is sold in town for much much more. It was really lovely when we got a chance to chat with the kids (usually if you bought something and they calmed down), they were really smiley kids and once these two girls who looked poorer than most, walked down the road with us for ages and at one point their different chants ‘buy my post cards, only one dollar’ ‘you want cold drink? Buy my cold drink lady’ combined into a sort of little song which they sang together but didn’t find funny, but we did. It was quite distressing that they were so desperate for us to buy something and they kept lowering their prices, but we really didn’t want anymore postcards and I think its really bad to give them money for nothing (begging) so I eventually offered them some sweets which they were shocked but very happy to receive for nothing in return. I later realized that this was probably a bad idea as I doubt they brush their teeth ever, but at least they had a little niceness that day!
After Angkor Thom we visited Spean Thma, a really cool ancient bridge which had been overgrown with trees, Ka Teo, a hill wat which was really scary to climb and then Ta Phrom, our unrivalled favourite. It’s all overgrown with huge ancient trees and its where Tomb Raider was filmed. It was raining so the next day we geekily came back to take better pictures! Then we went to Bantey Kdei and then back to the guesthouse.
The next day we ventured out on bicycles, we realized that this is a much better, cheaper, more fun option to getting a tuk tuk. We started at 4.30am so we could get to Angkor Wat in time for sunrise. Of course, our rusty hired bicycles didn’t have headlamps and it was terrifying navigating the roads in the pitch black! We reached Angkor just in time for sunrise, it was packed with tourists from tour buses, but we only spotted one other person who came by bike. Sunrise was a bit cloudy, but still cool. We headed off soon after to climb Phnom Bakheng – a mountain temple up a windy path and some steep steps, it was so early it was deserted and there was only a few groups of college kids practicing their English in groups at the top. We continued on the ‘grand tour’ through Angkor Thom to Thommanom (again empty but us) and its sister Chausay Tevod, we then went to Krol Romeas, Preah Khan, Krol Ko, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, Pre Rup, Sras Srang and then back to Ta Phrom. We then ate a traditional Cambodian stew/curry which was sort of sweet with white noodles and lots of offal in it (we feared for food poisoning) and then climbed back up Phnom Bakheng for sunset. It was packed, and the road leading up to it was so full with tuk tusk, motos and coaches that we didn’t even recognize it as the same place! We followed the procession up to the top and perched ourselves on the walls at the top and waited for the sunset. The place was so crowded that it wasn’t a very romantic setting, it was much nicer seeing the views alone in the daytime without all the cameras beeping everywhere! It was still pretty cool and weird though that there were so many people on an ancient monument all waiting for the sun.

The way back was much, much scarier than the way there! Lots of tuk tuk drivers offered us lifts before it got dark and we laughed them off and gestured to our bikes and they laughed back and said they meant with our bikes as well. We thought that was a silly idea, but when everyone from the Angkor park vacated at the same time by car, coach, tuk tuk and motorbike and it was pitch black again, we realized that we really should have took the tuk tuk back! It was a long and scary journey, but after arriving and leaving in the dark and seeing so much by ourselves we were so proud of ourselves and it was a great day overall!

The next day we ventured out on our bicycles further to the Roulos group, about 13km away from town on the hottest day in Cambodia so far. The journey was excellent, we saw the more local side of Siem Reap and loads more of the countryside, we had the usual cheers from children and saw lots of small villages and cool local stuff. The Roulos group was alright, nothing too special, we visited Preah Ko (where my chain fell off and we had to repair it with twigs, kids came out and watched us and brought us water to wash our black oily hands, I gave them sweets in return), Bakong, tried to find Prasat Prei Monti but instead found more small villages and some small (I believe) hospital chapels hidden behind huts, we also saw a girl herding a huge flock of ducklings which was cool. There was also a procession of female monks (dressed in white, I don’t know if they’re called nuns?). We then cycled to Lolei where we picked up loads of cool snacks like bananas and tasty bread things all for one dollar for the journey back.

The next few days we enjoyed Siem Reap town in a leisurely sort of way before catching the bus to Phnom Penh. It was uneventful apart from that one night a man on the roadside rather sinisterly commented on my engagement ring, I felt a bit wierded out about it so we decided I should take it off and we’d buy something cheaply to replace it. On the way back that night a tiny child grabbed my left hand in the same road the man had been. She wouldn’t let go and kept asking for food We had nothing on us and we were quite far away from any shops (we were about to approach the dreaded dark muddy street), we were really freaked out and she was so persistent and was nearly crying and we had no idea what to do with her because she walked really far with us and we felt awful that she was far away from town and all alone. We decided to give her a tiny amount of money and I put it in her hand but she looked frightened and wouldn’t accept it and so we walked and she followed us. Eventually we got to the muddy road and we told her once again that we had no food and she should go back to town and she reluctantly took the money and trotted off back. It all seemed so weird, but we think that maybe she was told to get my ring off me, but since I didn’t have it on she would have gone back empty handed and god knows what would have happened to her, she looked so frightened. Cambodia is so lovely, but so sad and it leaves you feeling so crap because there doesn’t seem to be much that you can do to help!

Thailand Islands

On the last day at Kanchanaburi we cycled to the Chung Kai war cemetery and Wat Tham Khao Pan, it was a beautiful cycle through paddy fields and small villages. We were guided through the cave silently by our guide who showed us the many rooms including one large reclining gold Buddha with little grace and no words! It was still cool though and we ate some delicious fried banana there.

We have done a lot since Kanchanaburi! We had another night in Bangkok before heading to the station to get the night train to Chumphon to get the ferry to Koh Tao. That was the plan anyhow, it didn’t work out anything like that! Firstly, we nearly drowned on Khao San road trying to buy some waterproof backpack covers (irony). We were wading up to our calves in rainwater and god knows what else and everyone was taking pictures of us because no one else dared to go in, but we were on a mission so we had to!
We got to Hualanphong station at about 10pm and waited for our train, the station was cool in a Michael Palin sort of way. Lots of people waiting on the floor, eating picnics and stuff. When the time came we went to check our platform to find out that our train had been cancelled because of the protesting in the South. We later found out that all trains had been cancelled in the whole of South Thailand as the people of the South are against the stuff that’s going on with the government and had all come up to Bangkok (we heard some ridiculous figure like 80% of one town) to protest and riot. We met up with a French couple who’s plan was to catch the local train to Prachaup Kiri Khan (half way down) and then work out the rest from there, although the train didn’t leave until the morning, so we had to sleep rough! Oh us poor flashpackers sleeping rough! They closed the station so we slept outside, all four of us huddled around our backpacks with the cockroaches and rats (seriously, we had to keep throwing the cockroaches away from us!). It was horrible, but in a fun way. There were lots of local people there too including grannies and kids, so it wasn’t actually so like sleeping rough, more like a smelly, dirty sleepover kind of thing….Anyway, after about half an hours sleep (between us) we headed to Thonburi station at about 5am and got onto our train (3rd class hard seats all the way!) to Prachaup Kiri Khan. Six hours later and through some wicked scenery (really cool journey worth doing – it only costed less than a pound for the whole journey and there was not one other tourist on the train and it was packed with happy Thais going to the beach and ladies walking up and down the carriage with fruit and snacks and sticky rice in bags! ) we arrived in Prachaup. If you go to Thailand go here! It was beautiful! A pristine white sand beach, little islands in the sea (look a bit like halong bay - not that’s we’ve seen it yet - on a small scale), theres a small mountain dominating the town which is called Mirror mountain and had a wat and a mirror on the top and hundreds of monkeys who came down to the beach in the evenings to play and to splash in the water and stop traffic on the road. We walked up and down the empty streets along a strip of beach on an island haggling at the empty guesthouses for bungalows. We stayed in a lovely little bungalow run by an old couple. The French couple went elsewhere as our bungalow was about 20p out of their budget and they had plans to sleep in their tent (they quite riled us…quite a lot, but I wont go into it - they protected us from the cockroaches at night!). We loved Prachaup and almost stayed there instead of going to the islands, it was sunny and beautiful and deserted and the people were so utterly lovely and friendly! If you want to go there you don’t have to get the poor peoples train, you can also get a luxury bus, but I think its so unfair because its hardly mentioned in the lonely planet and I think that’s why no one is there (everyone walks around with their copy like it’s the bible, I cant say we’re much different) its also really cheap contrary to the LP. The next day we set of in the morning (in the dark) for the local bus to take us to Chumphon.

We got the ferry to Koh Tao. The catamaran was fun, to get to it there was a deserted beach we got a bus to and crystal clear waters with a long, long, thin wooden walkway that we walked for miles down in the middle of the sea. It was so funny because it was just full of backpackers and all you can see in front of you is a backpack and then the sea to either side.
We stayed in a little bungalow off the beach on the island on Sairee beach. It as very nice and relaxed, but quite expensive with lots of real holiday makers about and lots of luxury resorts. We spent the days on the beach (near deserted as most of the people come to dive so they’re in the water all day), eating banana pancakes and listening to Jack Johnson over and over and over on comfy pillow on the beach enjoying the various happy hours and the evenings snuggled up in a bar watching films on their big screens. One even had a friendly cat who slept on my lap. The sand on Koh Tao was so lovely, the softest and whitest we had ever seen and the water was crystal clear, there were hammocks in the palm trees and coconuts to sip, it was lovely.

After a few days we headed to Koh Samui, the stretch if water between Koh Pha-ngan and Samui was awful! They handed out sick bags when we started to go which was not a good sign. The waves were so huge and our boat seemed very tiny and likely to sink at any moment, people kept running to the deck to be sick and they played the same DVD twice!

Koh Samui was pretty much same same to Koh Tao, we stayed in another lovely bungalow (Free House Bungalows) and lazed on the beach and did pretty much nothing again! The most we did was have a traditional Thai massage on the beach, it was so lovely and relaxing.

Sunday, 31 August 2008

Kanchanburi

So here we are in Kanchanburi! Its really nice, very touristy, but there is a lot to do. We are staying at the Sugar Cane guesthouse, which is as sweet as its name, and we are also treating ourselves to their best rooms - floating on the kwai! We have visited the war cemetaries and museums (some very very odd!) and also the bridge again. This morning we had a cookery lesson where we learnt how to make Pad Thai, Green curry (spicy!!!!!) and spring rolls, it was fun especially because our teacher was a ladyboy! Sugar took us to the market in the morning and we learnt loads and loads and then we cooked loads of food and ate it for lunch! We cant wait to get back and cook it for everyone!
Tomorrow we are off to see the elephants and some other stuff (we booked a tour...).
xxx

An adventure...we think

So we set off from Bangkok really really early in the morning and headed for the northern train station. We had directions to get a train to one place, a bus to another and to ask in at a cafe to visit the 'amazing' ganesha park.
The station was straight out of a Michael Palin documentary (the old ones where he actually travelled and didnt have everything arranged already), it was full of local Thai people and next to a market and even early in the morning there were so many smells and sounds from the food being prepared for the day. We were in 3rd class (wooden seats and no air conditioning, but all the windows open and some fans), it was so cool, we loved it! We bought snacks along the way like barbequed chicked on squewers with bags of sticky rice and fruit. The scenery was immense! It went from the suburbs of Bangkok to little slums by the river to small villiages to fields (most of them - think of The Beach), to jungle. It was brilliant! Suddenly the train stopped and loads and loads of tourists got on, we were a little bemused until we remembered that we were travelling along the same line that was built by the POWs under the Japanese invasion of SE Asia and we would eventually cross over 'the bridge over the river kwai'. It was bizarre, the train slowed at scenic points for them and then after about half an hour they all disappeared and got back on their tour buses. It became a local train again and we got off at our destination NamTok. Namtok is a small town in Kanchanaburi province, nevertheless, we were pestered by touts as we got off asking us to get in their taxis so they could drive us to their guesthouses in the middle of nowhere and take all our money. It was also pouring with rain and we were soaked with our backpacks on, and we didnt know where the bus stop was and no one would tell us, they just directed us to the touts, we were feeling a bit miserable to say the least!
Anyway, we escaped down a random road and asked some normal local people who directed us to the bus stop (on big lady even offered to tak us on the back of her bike, we didnt think there would be enough room even for one of us, let along with our big bags too!). We got to the bus stop and met a lovely lovely man who wanted to practice his english with us. He helped us to ring our guesthouse (there was no answer) and wrote down our destination (Dawadung) in our book in Thai so we could show the driver, he also told the driver and some other people where we were going, so we had lots of help! He also told us that we were just 1km from the Burmese border and that it was very dangerous in the jungle because there are some minority groups there who are recognised by no one so have to live in no mans land and train their kids up as child soldiers. It was all very interesting. Anyway, we got the bus and got off by the restaurnat in Dawadung. We got there and a French guy greeted us and told us that the owners had just disappeared that morning after telling him to look after the place and that there was little point in us staying more than a night. We were so disappointed as there were supposed to be elephants there! Anyway, we slept in a cool raft house on the River Kwai, in the middle of the jungle, it would have been beautifully peaceful were it not for the kids of the cook (they cooked us heaps and heaps of food) who were so loud and stayed up drinking and diving off the raft all night, there was also the biggest thunderstorm ever! It was crap and soggy, but the next day the french guy told us not to bother paying, so we were happy!
We took the bus to Kanchanburi (where we are now), it was really nice taking the bus again, and again felt very off the beaten track, the locals looked at us strangely and a lady kept giving us sweets, it was nice!