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

 

Bangkok - Wednesday

Tuk-Tuk ride

We bade farewell to Sukhumvit and Dennis, and headed down to Khaosan Road, by combination of the BTS Skytrain and a tuk-tuk. Our home for the next three nights was Green House Hostel, which was easy to find after we were initially directed to the tourist office, which also sold us tickets from Bangkok to Siam Reap for around £20. Unfortunately that turned out to be a bit of a rip off, but that's a story for later.

Our hostel was on this road, parallel to Khaosan Road

We did our usual thing of wandering about getting our bearings, finding a park, some fancy buildings and a shisha place among the countless bars, restaurants and street vendors.

We stopped and had dinner:

Before grabbing some shisha and hitting the real Khaosan Road.

Where was this place when I was 16?

Fancy a massage? Lie down sir

Creepy Ronald

Cool upstairs bar with a guitarist singing out some top English tunes, including Oasis

Julia and Caroline (ducking out of the photo on the right) - our German friends

I had to.

Me with a genuine ladyboy of Bangkok, as per request from pretty much everyone who knew I was coming out here.. But particularly Becki :P

Ping pong show salesman. You should see his menu

This is what KSR looks like:

One of the 'ping pong show' salesmen. If you want to know what that is, message me on Facebook and I'll send you a picture of his 'menu'

And finally, Andy and I eating some scorpion, because when in Rome.

One of the 'ping pong show' salesmen. If you want to know what that is, message me on Facebook and I'll send you a picture of his 'menu'