Onto Thailand and Thai Curries...

On the 27th August we arrived in Bangkok after a small delay of four hours. We were ready for a beer and a good meal as we hadn't eaten at all that day and it was coming on 8pm at night. After feeding our faces and enjoying a well deserved Leo beer we had a wander up the famous Khao San Road. It is everything you expect it to be....overpriced, tacky and extremely touristy. It's interesting to sit and people watch though, all ages, families, teenagers and even people in the late 60's upward. Hippies, The suited and booted and lady boys. Anything and Everything.

There's a lot to do in Bangkok and not for to unreasonable a price although accommodation, as in any city is overpriced and shabby. We had a great day out to the National Museum which was huge and housed everything from Royal Palanquin's to Thailand arts and crafts. It had over 25 rooms of which are feet gave up at about 22! We had a good look around the city of which streets are laced with jewellery stores, I do wonder how they all manage to survive with so much competition.

On Sunday 29th August we got the worst bus of my life to Chaing Mai, a pure 12 hours of torture. When you have got use to not having air con, an air conditioned bus is like sitting in the snow naked! I was freezing all night and every time I even imagined drifting off to sleep I woke myself up with a violent shiver. Next time I will be putting my fleece on!!!

Chiang Mai is beautiful with tonnes of things to do that don't cost you anything and over 100 temples filling the center. We have kept ourselves busy but Chiang Mai is to be short lived as we're moving on to Laos tomorrow. Unfortunately we won't have the pleasure of travelling with Chris and Ellie as they can't afford the extra travel and visa expenses. We will be no doubt meeting up after we have done Laos and we wish them happy travels and to stay safe, they will be very much missed.

So bring on Loas... Luang Phabang is our first stop but we have a full 18 hours of travel first!...;

Angkor Temples, Siem Reap - Cambodia

So I have finally got around to telling you about the beautiful Angkor Temples, this was one of the things Daniel and I were looking forward to most out of our travels and was most definitely worth every penny. We went to see them on Tuesday 24th August 2010.

We woke up early, 4.30am to be precise, still feeling dazed and confused I pulled on some clothes and washed my face. We heard a knock on the door which we weren't expecting. It was Chris he told us that Ellie was feeling slightly under the weather and she had decided to give Angkor a miss and do it the day after, so Chris and Ellie stayed behind and Daniel and I ended up going it alone, they were very much missed. The sky was still dark and the air outside was as cool as I had known it for quite some time. Our tuk tuk driver stood at our Guest house gate looking about as blurry eyed as us. We jumped in the tuk tuk and set off on our way in to the night that would be vastly approaching dawn within the next hour. There's something about seeing a town by tuk tuk while it's still dark and the streets are deserted, it already felt magical before we'd arrived at our destination.

After a quick stop at the ticket office we were soon arriving in the parking area of Angkor Wat. It was still pitch black out and we were pointed in the direction in which we were to head to catch the sunrise over the temple. Luckily for us Angkor Temples are still popular out of season and we followed a line of people that led the way, we hadn't thought to bring a flash light to guide our feet on the uneven pavement so it was handy to have a crowd to follow. As the sun rose slowly on the over the top of the Angkor Wat Temple it wasn't no way near as impressive as we might of hoped due to a slightly cloudy morning, however the atmosphere was incredible, the silence of so many people in anticipation, the sound of hens"cockadoodling" as the dawn broke and the tremendous presence of dragon flies each equally as beautiful and colourful that surrounded the air around the temples. The Angkor Wat Temple itself is a beautiful old building, which has been restored in parts. There are so many parts to explore and even just the first temple took Daniel and I nearly two hours to walk round. We visited about another 6 through out the day, my favourite being The Bayon. The Bayon is a building that you imagine seeing in Tomb Raider or Indiana Jones movie, a lost world of it's own. The temple has something like 50 towers on it each with huge carved faces, it has a green mould growing over the very old stone and plants that have wiggled there way through every nook and cranny. It was so hard not to be a big kid in this place imagining you'd found a lost world of your own.

The Angkor Temples are infinite with more than you could ever imagine taking in in a week, let alone 1 day! We have already said this will be an adventure for our future holidays to come!

We spent a few more days in the lovely Siem Reap before getting a bus to Bangkok, Thailand. Daniel and I did some wandering around, took in some local temples and even went up to the Angkor Childrens Hospital to donate some blood and they even gave us a free T-Shirt to say thank you. The journey to Thailand on the 27th August included a very tedious boarder crossing and a result of us arriving nearly 4 hours later than expected in Bangkok.....

Phnom Penh - Cambodia

Cambodia is a fantastic country, filled with both sadness and joy, a country that I would recommend to be visited by everyone at least once in their lives. This country has suffered tremendous loss within the last 40 years of it's life, a victim to mass Genocides and an unscrupulousness leader, Pol Pot. Visiting some of the places I have seen in this country has broken my heart, but yet the people stand strong and happy. It's a very kind country and honest in it's ways.

We visited the S-21 Genocide prison, this was the place that Pol Pot set up to torture thousands of innocent victims of Cambodia in attempt to learn any secrets from them, a pure act of evil. It was really emotional to think that all the rooms had been kept the same including the tiny sells they put prisoners in and even the tools they used to torture them. I think the hardest part of all was seeing the pictures that the Khymer Rouge had taken of all the victims. There were thousands of them, each picture you could see the true look of despair in the peoples eyes, the pleading, the longing for release. I wanted to reach out for them and save them but these peoples lives had already been wasted! So sad. We had hard work trying to cheer ourselves up but if the Cambodians can manage it then so could we. We stopped at a little cafe out on a dusty road and sat down for some vegetarian noodles, even though we didn't feel much like eating. The afternoon was rewarded with a visit to The Russian Market and The National Museum.

The following day we went out to The Killing Fields, I was not looking forward to this after my previous experience at the S-21 Museum but I went along as it needs to be seen to stop a tragedy like this happening again. The Killing Fields were tough, the mass graves were a plenty and some had still been undisturbed. People dumped in pits of up to 166 bodies, treated with the most disregard for a human life. Again it was heartbreaking. The afternoon we visited Phnom Penh temple which was nice to stroll around we needed a relaxing afternoon after the past few days.

We got to Siem Reap a few days ago, we have explored the whole town, sitting admiring the scenery, working our way through book after book and eating at a different place every night. It's extremely touristy though so we try and stay out of the main holiday makers part as much as possible. I hate the binge drinking travellers, they ruin the travel experience for me! I would of liked to stay and write about The Angkor Temples but the Internet cafe has had an influx of "Raaah travellers" and I can't stand to listen to them F and Jeff anymore so I'll write about that another day.

The weather is still great here and despite the supposed monsoon wherever we go, we haven't had much other than sunshine filling our day! Fingers crossed it continues this way and I hope at the same time that Europe gets to enjoy some sunshine this summer.

Bye for now England or to my German family... Auf Wiedersehn
x

Good Travels..Hong Kong & Vietnam

Ok so I have more than one country now to catch up with you from as using the Internet has been low on my priorities compared to seeing beautiful Vietnam, I am currently in Ha Noi in central Vietnam. For now I am going to cast my mind back to Hong Kong and tell you the basics.

We arrived in Hong Kong on 2oth July 2010, I have to say I was very much taken back by the high-tech airport, not one piece of rubbish anywhere and every surface polished to a high shine! Incredible, especially compared to some of the airports we've been use to, that aren't much more than a wooden shed in a field! After very much enjoying and indulging in a very expensive Starbucks we headed for the taxi rank. Again this was an experience in itself. When you've been away for a while you most definitely get use to having to haggle every price, being ripped off at any opportunity and having to carefully watch every possession you own. Hong Kong however, the taxis are metered, there's very few sales attempts and you don't have to worry about drinking the tap water! Quite a treat in itself! Although you pay the price. It cost me 8GBP for a Cesar salad! Also anyone going?! No matter what you think, the little entrees that come with most meals ARE NOT FREE! Learnt my lesson once or twice. Anyway everything about Hong Kong I loved. The super sized buildings with 2 million floors (Slight exaggeration). The very expensive clothes, the great air conditioning everywhere. All contributed to an extremely pleasant stay for the 5 days we were there. We visited Museums, took a boat across the harbour, walked down little streets and checked out the markets. We saw the Light Harbour Show and I have never seen so many colourful lights in my life.. However I imagined they probably felt how I feel about the illuminations, although lucky for me it's only once a year where as the poor people of Hong Kong have to deal with that every night at 8pm!

I will have to continue on quite quickly as there's still so much more to tell you, before I do I must inform you about our mission to find the cheapest accommodation in Hong Kong. This mission should have been named MISSION NEAR IMPOSSIBLE! We traipsed up and down building with all our backpacks until we turned into a sweaty mess, climbed stairs, waited for tiny lifts that smelt of urine and had to shout at a random guy that was almost begging us on his knees to look at his place (anyone that begs can't have good rooms, right?). It wasn't great, we settled in a building that on the ground floor was full of markets and by the fourth floor we found our place for the five days. Not a touch on the clean airport we had been at just minutes ago, this huge ugly building reminded me of some really scummy car parks in Blackpool when drunks had been sleeping there, at least it smelt similar! Our room wasn't to bad but it was tiny with bunk beds and a small double, an air conditioning machine possibly from the last century and no on-suite...gutted! We all managed well though and on leaving to Vietnam we were looking forward to some new accommodation.

Vietnam, Hanoi - Arrival of Vietnam all I really picked up on was how green it was, a beautiful lush country with lots of rice fields. Apparently we have landed in this fine country in peak season, so cheap accommodation hadn't been easy to come by and tourists have been a many! Hanoi is a typical Asian City, the markets, the street food, the crazy traffic and having to dodge hundreds of scooters to cross the road! It has had the cheapest beer I've come by which has been a treat because we haven't done much drinking on our trip so far. We walked around Hoan Kiem Lake and enjoyed reading our books on the benches close by, we visited a couple of Museum and organised all our upcoming travel through Vietnam and did some souvenir shopping. We also got to book an awesome trip to Ha Long Bay which was a very good investment!

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam - This is well worth doing for anyone who plans to visit Vietnam, that is as long as the weather is good! First day we met our group and travelled by mini bus to Ha Long Bay before we jumped on the boat. Our boat is what they call a "Junk Ship", an enormous almost pirate style boat with huge masts and shiny wooden surfaces from head to toe. As we climbed on board the ship had three levels to it, 1st floor bedrooms, 2nd floor for dining, 3rd floor for sunbathing. It sleeps 14 people so our group was a really good size.

Our table was made up for us and we enjoyed an 8 course meal of seafood and meats and of course they were great with the lads and made them vegetarian alternatives, while we set sail towards Cat Ba Island we all got acquainted and let our huge meals settle. The sun was beating down and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, the cool sea breeze was subtle but sufficient. The green sea reflected the sun and it shimmered like dancing diamonds. So fantastic. Ha Long Bay had hundreds of steep cliff like Islands and the view was so impressive already. We went to some caves which were beautifully lit and even got to jump off the boat that evening. The sea was as warm as I had imagined it would be. At night time our guide very kindly let us go for an evening swim, I thought this was very kind as I'm sure he was doing us a bit of a favour this was all in order to check out the Phosphorescent coral in the water. We all dived in and took in turns to wear the goggles, we headed to the back of the ship where it was really dark and in the pitch black air of the night we all waited in excited anticipation. It came around to my turn and I ducked my head under water, held my eyes open wide and as guided, I started swinging my arms around like a crazy person. This was quite incredible, at the edge of my skin the sparkle was bright and made the water shimmer with a fairy dust glow. I felt like Tinkerbell! It was insane and one of the most crazy experiences so far. It happens because the tiny coral floats in the water and when the coral is disrupted it glows and because there's millions of them it creates a really amazing effect!

I have to start getting faster at this typing...the next day we visited more caves, a shrimp farm and rented canoes. We two ed up and took them out without our guide who just pointed in the direction we should aim for. I really enjoyed it as we rowed through that beautifully green sea with the sun making it very hard not to want to jump out to cool down. We rowed for about 45 minutes until we came to this sweet little white sand beach,covered in beautiful shells. First opportunity we dived in the sea to cool down and it was like heaven.

"Dad if your reading this I got you some shells that I picked up off this beach, I thought you might like them towards the collection you already have".

The rest of the time in Ha Long Bay was equally as magical and I am filled with memories I will never forget! I would like to tell you more but I have to hurry soon as I have a bus to catch. The weathers taken a sharp turn here in the last hour and it's gone from glorious sunshine to dark moody skies, thunder and lightening and thumping rain, but still just as sticky hot. I'm glad to be moving on if it's going to rain.

We called through Hue on the way to Hoi An which was a bit nothing really. Daniel and I took a boat ride on the river and it was really nice but really Hue doesn't have much to offer so I'm glad we made a joint decision to pass through. Hoi An is awesome if you like your clothes, it isn't as cheap as it use to be so hard bargaining is definitely needed. I have invested in a winter coat tailor made with silk lining, 5 fitted shirts and 5 dresses all for about 70GBP not bad ay?! Daniel got a lovely fitted suit, a shirt and a pair of shoes designed by himself!

I will tell you more next time. Hope your all well. I miss you!