Sihanoukville

Our coach to Sihanoukville was picking us up at 11:30, so we had plenty of time to pack before heading down to breakfast. As usual, Raksmey (the cheerful receptionist) served us with a great start to the day, and soon we were joined by Andy, who told us of his escapades the previous night, and that we would be joined at breakfast by two of the girls he had met and wooed.

Andy

One of the girls, who he had nicknamed Corina (after the girl in the song), arrived and was very friendly. We had a photo with her:

.. Yep, he tapped dat.

Then the time came to get on the tuk-tuk and ride to the bus station, so we bid fond farewell to Raksmey, Andy, Corina and Fatman and trundled away from our latest group of new friends.

Fatman

Raksmey

Five hours later, we were ensconced in our bungalow hotel room at GBT 1, Sihanoukville. It had two very large beds (I think there was room for maybe four more people in mine!), ensuite and TV. Here's a video blog I recorded in the room:

My iPad cut out before I could finish my sign off, so I'll say my hello to Katie, Marc, Ethan, Oliver, Mia, Isla here. And while I'm at it, Mum, Dad, John, Nan, Grandad and Gran. HELLO!

Photos of stuff mentioned in the video:

Ernie's menu

Dat flag

Bloons

Breathe out..

Breathe in

Up on the stage

Busting shapes

Next day at the beach

Hot dogs or legs?

Beach at night

Fireworks (sold by 8 year olds on the beach, poor mites)

Liam - what you see is what you get

Sunburn.. Ouch

Til next time faithfuls x

 

Thursday in Cambodia

Skip to the post on 9/11/13 if you'd rather see me talk about this day on video :)

Choeung Ek Killing Fields

Fair warning, this post is pretty dark, like the things we saw today. Read on if you're an adult and if you don't mind hearing about what one genocidal lunatic is capable of doing to a country.

Journey to PP & a letter from our scouse stalkers!

As Song had deserted us, Matra kindly arranged us transport to the bus station for our coach to Phnom Penh. We said goodbye to her and her brother and tuk-tuk'd away.

Our favourite pair of lovely Liverbirds popped up for the third time in the bunks below us on the coach! They wrote us this letter:

They're down in Sihanoukville now enjoying some beach and sunshine, hope they have a fantastic time!

The bus journey was simple enough, it was a sleeper coach with free wifi which made it especially comfortable. We arrived at the Laughing Fatman guesthouse at around 1am, and after a bit of confusion which involved us swapping our twin room for a dorm for the first night (free beers were given to compensate), we dropped our heavy bags and headed down to the hostel bar. There we met Ahren, a Canadian guy who teaches English in South Korea. After getting to know him a bit, we went to the shop and bought some of his favourite booze; Sogu, which is apparently the best selling drink in the world. It is drunk in shots and tastes a little like vodka, but in a good way. Will try and get my hands on some when home.

Anyway a few of those was more than enough to finish us off so we staggered up to the dorm and fell asleep.

 

Angkor Wat sunrise, Uncharted fun and karaoke bars

For temple photos, see the special album I made - there were just too many to put in a normal post! It's here:

https://plus.google.com/photos/105340104394524970526/albums/5949710737454954449?authkey=CLDl7d_E1OLZTA

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.