Beachside Bubble

I'm writing this blog after banging my phone several times against the bed, turning it on and off again a few times, and generally yelling at it. My phone has been struggling with the humidity, and the couple of scratches it picked up in Australia. So far I've been relatively patient with it. Today I am not. I have just come back from three days of blissful peace, of no wifi and only 6 hours of electricity (6pm-midnight). It's been incredible.

The first day I finished the book I'd been chugging my way through. The second day I'd read an entire second book by 11am. In the afternoon, I learnt how to play backgammon, as well as a Cambodian card game, before challenging my competitors (three kiwis and a fellow Brit) to a game of Exploding Kittens. In the evening, we chatted at the bar whilst they drank cocktails, and I had a sprite or two.

The third day in the morning my games partners left so I had a quieter day - I had a wander down the beach and wrote  some of my diary (I'm up to Bangkok now so I've almost caught up!). The afternoon I finished another book, and did some puzzles. I watched the sunset and did my good deed by collecting a whole bag of litter that the locals had left on the beach.

And now I am back, fighting with my phone, dealing with tourists, staying in dorms with strangers who don't bother talking to me, wishing I could have stayed longer in my little beachside bubble. Probably a good job I only got there at the end of my trip - I may never have left otherwise.

War Crimes

When I think of mass genocide, with reasons for death being race, or imperfections, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I think of WW2, of Hitler and the gas chambers. It's what I was taught at school. We all know about it. But if you think that this was the last time this mistake was made, you're wrong.

The Cambodian genocide started in 1976. It ended in 1979, just one year before my older brother was born. A quarter of the country was killed, and often in much less humane ways than Hitler came up with.

It's important to remember that these things didn't stop with Hitler. Winning the war did not heal the world. There have been even more recent genocides than the Cambodian ones, particularly thinking of Rwanda in 1994 - within my lifetime.

I spent a sombre morning walking around both the prison where innocent people were tortured until they confessed their "crimes", and the killing fields, where they were sent when they ran out of "crimes" to confess to. I won't go into too many details - you can find them on the Internet if you want - but the one thing that really got me from the audio tour was the repeated quote "Cambodians killing Cambodians" and it reminded me of a song by Cara Dillon about the Northern Ireland issues:
"I wonder just how many wars are fought between good friends"

The answer is certainly too many.

Angkor What?

I was already in love with Cambodia just from the bus drive to Siem Reap. I knew I would be, that's why I was so determined to get here. I checked into my hostel and soon found myself booking onto a sunrise tour of Angkor Wat. Yes people, a sunrise tour. That meant being at the front door at 4.30am! Luckily everyone else in my dorm had had the same bright idea, so we all woke each other up. I ended up tagging along with two British girls - Mel and Lindsey - and we headed off into the dark with our Tuk Tuk driver.

Sunrise over Angkor Wat is pretty incredible. Even on this day when it was cloudy, it was still pretty spectacular. Lots of the tourists made the mistake of thinking because it was light, sunrise was over, and so wandered off, giving us an even better view :-)

After sunrise, we spent the next 3 hours wandering around temples, with our Tuk Tuk driver (I want to say his name was Heung but I have probably spelt it wrong!) giving us a few extra details along the way, and letting us borrow a guide book - great!

I spent the next day here too (this time with a Danish girl!) adding another 4 hours amongst the massive temple complex. Built mostly in the 12th century, it was rediscovered in the 19th, and most temples have been restored to their original state, carvings redone, new wooden steps added to reduce the wear as tourists weave around them. But some (including Ta Prohm) have been left as they were found, with trees wrapped around the sandstone blocks, roots pushing them up, slowly causing collapse.

I honestly don't know which was more impressive - the restored ones, or the ones left as they were found - and I wondered what those European explorers must have thought, how they must have felt, as they pressed through the jungle, only to come across these giant ancient structures. I knew what I was coming to, and I was still blown away by the enormity of the whole complex and the minute details throughout. For someone who had no idea, it must have been something else entirely.

The Journey.

I'd always intended to do most of my travelling overland. It hadn't worked out from Malaysia to Thailand, but Thailand to Cambodia seemed more promising. I could have got the bus from Khao Yai (the national park), which involved several changes, but I decided to go back to Bangkok to get the direct bus to Siem Reap. They drop you off at the border, and wait for you on the other side. You can even leave everything on the bus (as long as you've got your passport!).

I had booked my ticket the day before, so all I needed to do was get to the bus station. The hostel staff told me it was too far to walk, so I ignored them and walked - it was half an hour. As I got closer to the bus station, it became apparent just how much rain there had been the night before, and I had to wade, ankle deep, through a couple of fairly major lakes that were once roads. The buses still seemed to be running though, and one entrepreneurial Thai had even set up a little ferry cart across one particularly wet patch!

I got to the bus and was relieved to find other westerners. The Thai-Cambodia border is pretty notorious for scams and dodgy visas, and the hope of travelling with other English speaking travellers was another factor in coming back to Bangkok.

The first half of the journey went without a hitch, some snacks, lots of naps, and a toilet stop. As we got close to the border, the bus steward (for want of a better word...) warned us of one of the usual scams (paying for arrival cards - 100 baht - they're free!) and myself, the English couple behind me, two German girls and an Aussie guy (travelling with his philippino wife who didn't need a visa) agreed to stick together to make sure we got the right thing!

We were dropped off outside an office, and there was a sign saying visas. A friendly Thai guy asked me for my passport which I held out. He took it off me and asked where my photo was (you need a passport photo to get a Cambodian visa, but you can also pay for one at the Cambodian visa office, which I was intending to do). Suddenly he was whisking me off to get a photo and at this point, alarm bells were ringing, but he had my passport in his hand, so I was following him! He took me to somewhere where I could get a photo (for a price - 150 baht for the photo and 1600 baht for the visa. More than I should have been paying!) but I replied firmly that I knew I could get them at the Cambodian visa office, and after a couple of firm No's he handed my passport back and pointed the way to the Thai departure office, where I caught up with the English couple and the Aussie. The German girls had been caught up in the scam, just like I almost had.

We made our way through departure, and into this bizarre no man's land between Thailand and Cambodia, which can be accurately described as the land time forgot. It's full of men pulling wooden carts (usually empty when I was there) and huge modern casinos. A bit further on there was the visa office. A non descript building with very few signs, but definitely the right place. We paid for our visas (US$30 - I paid an extra $5 for my lack of photo) and carried on to arrivals, where we were given departure cards for free, and our visas got stamped, before we got back on to our bus - first ones back! I was so glad that I had found other people to go through the process with.

The German girls (along with a Russian girl that I hadn't even realised was on the coach) had paid almost double for "express visas" which meant they filled in the same form, but a man went to the embassy for them with their forms and passports whilst they waited. On this day, they were slower than us by about 10 minutes - so much for express!

The rest of the journey was plain sailing, and the hostel I am staying in even organised transport for me, so there was a man waiting with my name on a card!

Early night tonight so I can watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat tomorrow - bring on Cambodia!!

In The Jungle

Racing along in the back of the jeep so fast that one of the girls is feeling very sick, we're all wondering how on earth we're going to see any animals going at this speed...

It's been a really successful day so far. Within minutes of stopping to have a mini briefing, our guide jumped up "come, come" - from 100yards away he spotted a thin snake hiding in a tree, one of those 'it's obvious once you've seen it' situations. He continued to amaze us throughout the day with his ability to find animals, insects, reptiles that were seemingly impossible to spot (we even wondered at times whether he'd been secretly carrying them around all day and just planted them without us seeing!). Thoughout the day we saw three more snakes (1 whip snake, and 3 pit vipers), three gibbons, three monkey families (adding up to a lot of monkeys!), two water monitors, two water dragons (endangered!), a lot of spiders, a hornbill, a kingfisher, a egret (white), a couple of deer, a scorpion (that he brought into the back of the jeep with us - too close for comfort!!), a few geckos and even an extremely rare endangered crocodile (as in there are only two that live in the entire river we were walking down). Our guide also found a porcupine quill, which basically counts as seeing a porcupine, right?!

We'd stopped in a few locations before spending the afternoon trekking between two waterfalls - one of which is apparently famous from a Leonardo Di Caprio film that I haven't seen - and we were now on the last bit of the day - a drive around to "see if we can see some animals".

As I said, we were dubious about seeing more animals, given the way they were driving, until suddenly we slowed down next to another tour jeep. Some excited Thai conversation and a few hand gestures later, and we quickly realised the reason we had been driving so fast - we had a very real possibility of seeing a wild elephant. Our guide had been called by his friend, and sure enough, if we listened hard enough, we could hear the branches cracking under the feet of a large animal. As we watched with baited breath, the leaves began to rustle, and our guide waved to the elephant "come this way, come this way". Unfortunately, whether it's that he didn't understand or just simply didn't care, the elephant didn't quite make it out into the clear, but our driver drove us a little closer and through the branches we could see our elephant. He very kindly turned around a couple of times, so we could see his head and his tail. He didn't come close enough for us to get good photos (sorry mum!), but it's the memories that count ultimately.

I saw a wild elephant in the jungle.

Aaand Relax.

After a couple of eventful nights in my original hostel in Bangkok (rude staff, vomiting, bleeding, broken air con, screaming - all related to separate incidents across the two nights) I decided it was time to change! I had originally stayed there because it was close to (but not on) the infamous Khao San Road - the biggest party street in Bangkok. I wanted to see what the fuss was about and I wanted somewhere with a good atmosphere. And I got it - the second evening I spent there was jenga and BBQ filled, and really fun!

But it's not really me, so after the experience, I headed to a hostel on the outskirts of Bankok (via river boat and train!) and had the most relaxing day and a half of travelling so far. I did my laundry, I read an entire book in a day. I found a nice quiet cafe. I wrote my diary. I chatted to some fellow travellers. I went to bed. I had an entire 6 person dorm to myself. I had the best nights sleep.

And now I'm off to Pak Chong, which is on the outskirts of the national park. Getting to the bus station was an adventure by itself ("hey look it's really close to this train stop" - I misjudged really close) but once I got to the bus station, the staff were falling over themselves to help me.

I'm very excited by jungle treks and the national park, and the bat cave, and waterfalls, and the very small potential of elephants in the wild. I'm not getting my hopes up, but I really hope I see an elephant!

I Wasn't Expecting That

Malaysian Summary
In truth, I probably should have stayed in Malaysia longer. I could have spent at least another two days in Kuala Lumpur, and probably another three or four in Penang, but I felt like I had to keep moving, otherwise I was never going to get through everywhere I wanted to go. But I don't want to feel like I rushed through everywhere, that I missed things, that I should have lingered. So I have pretty much decided to cut Vietnam out of this trip. To spend a week and a half in each Thailand and Cambodia. Or a week in Thailand and two weeks in Cambodia. We'll see how it works out. But I'm not rushing anywhere.

Thailand
Well Bangkok is not what I expected. When I think of Bangkok, I think of the nights, the partying westerners, the shows, and the scamming and pick pocketing that is rife in the country. And that is pretty much what you get. At night*. But during the day, wow. The city is full of culture, tradition, noise, fun - even the message coming from the Grand Palace telling you to not believe people who say it is closed (a typical Thai scam) starts with a tuneful melody, instead of just your average "bing bong". And then in amongst the tourist chaos, there are these serene little oases (is that the plural of oasis?!) of green parks, calm, shady, quiet. Even inside the most touristic places (yes that's a word, my phone spelt it for me!) there are spaces of calm, to sit and watch the world go by. And then there's the river, full of boat taxis transporting people along, tourists and locals alike, past the Bangkok skyline. And the skyline (the underground, but in the air) with its air con trains that run on time, smoothly transporting you without hassle through the sky.

I wasn't expecting to like Bangkok. But I really do.

*Not that I've really been out at night, but I could guess from the noise coming from outside my first hostel!