Cambodia

well after a couple of manic days i am now in Siem Reap, well at least till tomorrow morning when i leave to go back to bangkok, again, to complete the circle.

spent a day doing very little in Phnom Penh but did manage to sell half the library i have been carrying around and bought a book more relevant to my travels - the girl in the photograph, its good, have finished it already. had a few drinks and a meal with lucy as it was are last night together before we went are differing ways.
next morning i caught a 6.45 bus to sihanoukville, which is down on the coast. cambodia seems to be like vietnam in the fact that you have to be ready early and then wait for the mode of transport to arrive sometime later. it rained from about an hour south of Phnom Penh till i passed almost the exact same spot a day later. thats because there is (was) a monsoon in attendance. so i arrived got soaked finding a hostel, went to see what the beach was like got soaked, went for a wander to see if the diving was still on - it wasnt and i again got soaked. the icing on the cake being that all power went off for most of the night. i promptly booked a ticket, via the use of candle light, back to phnom penh for the next day. in total i spent close on 10 hours for a few beers in the dark and the rain! one thing the bus journeys have done is allowed me to focus on planning -this was done in an attempt to divert the attention away from a rather smelly local lady. my plan is (subject to numerous changes) to go through southern thailand into malaysia and down, maybe hitting indonesia dependent on time.

anyway i got the bus back to the capital and then just managed to catch a connecting bus to Siem Reap, in order to avoid wasting an afternoon. so i arrived here yesterday after roughly 12 hours on a bus to the most hassle i have encountered so far. people were pulling you off the bus in all directions in an attempt to get you to use there services - i was told that, that is what india is like,if its true then i am not going. it was messy and people were being pushed to the floor in the chaos, one guy picked up my backpack and put it on his bike so i had no choice but to use him, as it turns out he was pretty good and best of all free - well the lift to the guesthouse was.

i went for the usual wander around the new place and found, well, bugger all pretty much - it is alot alot smaller than i thought it was going to be and very smelly. i organised my moto for this morning and basically went to bed early. the guy, called ron, picked me up this morning at 6.45 (thats am,and my 3rd sub 7.00 start in a row) and drove me around the sites of the temples and wats. to be honest i was only really impressed with the Bayon (all the faces carved into the rock) and Ta prohan (which is where they filmed Tomb raider) Angkor wat itself is only impressive due to its size, but as it is being rebuilt and maintained its just to clean for its own good. Ta Prohan is mush nicer as the jungle has been allowed to grow through it and is slowly destroying it, but it looks more real and feels like it should - despite the tourists it was easy to find a quiet spot to sit and ponder.

i only brought the 1 day ticket and am glad i didnt opt for the 3 day ticket which was my original plan. i am not one for buildings etc really and after my, what turned out to be, 6 hours doing the rounds i was well and truly templed out.

so tomorrow i leave for bangkok and you guessed it its another stupidly early started of a 6.30 pickup. not sure what i feel about going back there as i didnt really enjoy it the first time, but then i will be glad to get out of cambodia. i havent warmed to the country at all and to be honest if i was travelling again i would just miss it out altogether, or do it in 4 days quickly.
bring on the islands!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well due to computer problems i was unable to post the above when i was till in cambodia so i am now back in bangkok.

got in last night on a journey that is supposed to take 10 hours but ended up taking closer to 16 hours. the road from SR to the border was shocking and so bumpy that you couldnt eat, sleep, drink or read it was mental. met up with lucy again last night and swopped stories from are time apart. going south tonight to Krabi on yet another 16 hour bus journey, this time with the added bonus of it being overnight, so no sleep again.

getting back to bangkok was strange and it felt alot nicer than the first time and like i was a veteran in the travelling world compared to a newie - this time around i wasnt stood looking at maps and saw people doing that made me smile.

have been trying to upload all my photos but it aint happening in this place so i might go and try it elsewhere, as my camera memeory is full again from the temples.

i really, really hate buses - i dread to think how many more hours i have to spend on them before i finish my trip.

well i am now safe and sound in cambodia, after a eventful trip across.....

the bus we booked onto basically ripped us off by promising a large air con bus, however we got a small non air con bus packed to the rafters with people sitting on the floor for good measure. the bus took us from saigon to the border crossing. we were first off the bus and grabbed all bags etc and headed off for the visa / passport checks, in an attempt to be first in the line. this plan worked very well and we were through the vietnam side of proceedings quickly enough (10 mins per person) so we set off on the 300 metre walk across no mans land - we werent in vietnam but werent in cambodia so i have no idea where we were. the check point / entry is being built so there is rubbish everywhere and the heat had started to take effect so we were sweating by the time we reached, what can only be described as a 'hut' which was the crossing. after another 10 mins signing various bits and pieces we were in and headed down the dirt track to where we were told the bus would be waiting.

when we got there there was no one insight apart from a friendly taxi driver. the tour guide eventually turned up, minus a bus, and said that we wasnt sure if it was a big or small, with or without air con bus. we had already waited for 45 minutes and still no one had turned up so i asked the taxi driver how much to take us to phnom penh, as a laugh to pass the time. to are complete surprise he said you can rent the car for $10. so we jumped straight in and enjoyed a 2 hour taxi ride straight to the guest house we had been told to go to, all the way in air con comfort and listening to bob marley. last night we saw two people from the original bus to the border and they said that the bus was worse on the cambodian side and that it took almost 5 hours to get here - what a result!

the backpacker area is strange as it is situated around a lake, so when you sit out on the decked area you can forget that you are in a big city as the noise etc doesnt effect you. also the streets are small and close together with a surface made up of rubbish and grit, its a bit like a getto. the first night in cambodia was spent with dans (drunken dan the RAF man) mum who now lives over here. so she showed us round and introduced a few people she had helped and one brillant thing about last night was that the hostel is right on a lake, the west side of which the sunsets over - the colours were amazing and i took about 10 pictures. we stayed in the hostel despite the fact that the first room we rented had a rat in it, so we moved rooms and last night discovered a family of frogs in the bathroom - who strangely enough go mental when you spray them with water.

yesterday has been spent at the killing fields, which was got to on the back of a bike on the worst road i have ever been down, where due to pol pot about 2 million people were killed by cutting there throats. they had skulls piled as far as you eyes can see and it freaked me out abit. all these countries (laos, vietnam and cambodia) have had such terrible war crimes committed against them (all of which involved the good old USA in some capacity) and yet they are all so generally nice people. here they dont even try and rip you off, which is strange and a first on this trip. also it seems that it is more expensive here, you have to pay in dollars so i think its the fact that you hand over 1 instead of say 15,000 so it makes it more real.

i have booked my ticket to go south to Sihanoukville, saving myself a buck by leaving at 6.30 (it all helps) in the morning, so after tonight i will be back to travelling by myself. i am unsue of how long i plan to spend down there but it looks like i can go from there to battambang, thenn to siem reap instead of having to come back to phnom penh and then heading northwest. anyways i will keep you informed.

off to watch the movie - ''the killing fields'' about the war