Floating Village and sunset on the mountain

Song picked us up at 9:30am after we had enjoyed our free breakfast and we set off on the long and bumpy ride to the floating village. It took over an hour to get there, by which time we had very numb bums. Once there, we paid around $15 to be taken out to the village on a motorboat.

Soon, we arrived at the village and paid another $7 for a canoe ride through the rainforest.

 

Don't rock the boat, baby!

Don't rock the boat, baby!

We had some lunch at a restaurant which must make a roaring trade from ripping off tourists, and hopped on the speedboat back to the mainland. Andy and I were both given a chance to drive the boat, which was fun. Reminded me of my first ever lads holiday with Adam, Chris and Josh!

Don't rock the boat, baby!

Fortunately you can't see it in my eyes, but I was bricking it that I'd hit another boat

Andy on the other hand was very cool calm and collected

After we got back to shore, Song drove us to Bakeng Mountain in the tuk-tuk and we saw the sunset.

View from halfway up, beautiful

Song then took us back to the hotel where we had a delicious dinner of pulled pork baguettes with some unknown sauce which was lovely. I gave the local boy, Nong, a run for his money at pool, before Andy gave me a run for my money. We went to bed fairly early as we planned to get up before sunrise the next day.

 

Journey to Cambodia!

The minibus to Siam Reap picked us up at the hostel and we left Khaosan Road, Bangkok at 8:00am. After maybe 4 hours and a bus change, we got out at a cafe and got lunch while we got our visas processed.

It was here we met Holly and Emma, two very fun girls born in Liverpool, living in Australia and travelling through Southeast Asia like us, so we had lots to talk about while we waited at the cafe for about 2 hours. I don't have a photo of them, so here's one of Andy holding some Pringles.

As it turned out, we got ripped off for our bus ticket, as the girls paid only £4 for the same journey, whereas we paid £20. What can we say, we were taken in by a professional looking office and a man in a suit! You live and learn I guess. Andy is still annoyed about it.

Eventually we were packed onto another bus and taken to the border, where we stood in a line for about an hour waiting to be let into the country. Yawn. Eventually we got through and eventually our bus arrived, and eventually we were off to Siam Reap. After several hours, it was dark and people were hungry so we stopped at the Cambodian equivalent of a service station:

Interesting experience. Decent food, mosquitoes everywhere. After another couple hours on the bus we arrived and were greeted by a tuk-tuk driver named Song who took us to our hostel (City Garden Villa), and then arranged to pick us up the next day to take us to the Floating Village, and then the sunset at the top of Bakeng Mountain. The hostel made a good first impression, they took our bags up for us and there was a pool table, a comfy bar area and everything was made of sturdy looking wood. After a couple of games of pool we collapsed on our beds and fell asleep.

 

Bangkok - Thursday and Friday

We met up with Julia and Caroline and took a tuk-tuk to the Grand Palace. It was spectacularly extravagant. I'll let the photos do the talking:

It's like the worlds biggest photoshoot

The lady on the left is wearing a skirt that blends in with the steps

More gold than..???... Mr T

Juxtaposition. Because I love that word.

I'm the pap who paps the papper

Outside the temple of the Emerald Buddha. Some good meditation in there.

Doing those all identically by hand is beyond impressive

Painting on a long stretch of wall. It went a LOT further

Julia was definitely in charge

Us and Julia

Too sweaty for any bodily contact!

Afterwards, we had planned to go to Wat Arun and some of the other tourist spots around town, but everyone was just too tired and hot and sticky to do any of that so we went back for a shower and a chill. A few hours later Andy and I dragged ourselves out of our comfy, air conditioned room, and got dinner.

Andy keeping a close eye on the preparation of his Pad Thai

We then went and got a drink and shisha, eventually deciding that as we liked it so much we would return to Sukhumvit one last time while we were in Bangkok. It was Halloween night, and there was a lot going on in Khaosan, which made the tuk-tuk ride very quick as lots of people were heading in the opposite direction. We went pretty fast at one point:

Andy keeping a close eye on the preparation of his Pad Thai

This is what it looks like where the clubs are:

Andy keeping a close eye on the preparation of his Pad Thai

We had an awesome night at the disco, played pool, got breakfast, and staggered in at some ludicrously late hour, resulting in us not waking up until very late the next day. We packed and chilled out, before heading out to our favourite bar to while away the evening and reflect on what Bangkok had done to us. We rounded off the evening with crêpes from this artist:

Andy keeping a close eye on the preparation of his Pad Thai

One thing is for sure; we are both certain we want to come back some day, hopefully sooner rather than later!

Andy keeping a close eye on the preparation of his Pad Thai