Week 7 (Koh Tao and Koh Pang Nan)

Week 7

Koh Toa (20/11/07 - 23/11/07)

We had a nightmare journey to get to our next destinations: Koh Toa and then Koh Pang Nan. We booked a bus and a ferry ticket through a tour operator at our guesthouse. When we got onto the bus it was a local bus and there weren't many westerners on board, it was only 6 hours later when we arrived into Surat Thani that some of the other travellers realised that their bags had been opened and things had gone missing.

We had paid for a night ferry to take us to Koh Toa, but when we got to the tour operator the ferry had been "cancelled" and she conveniently had a hotel that she recommended. We weren't sure if this was a con, but being in the middle of nowhere we went to look at the hotel, which seemed nice enough (kind of).

The next day we caught another "express" ferry to Koh Toa, we were assured it would only take 3 hours however it ended up being 7 1/2 hours and it was a very rough ride!!
However, arriving on the island we were blown away with its beauty. The photo above is from our little bungalow near "Freedom beach" and the photo on the left is taken from the restaurant.

We had decided on a really lazy few days here in Koh Toa, I was still on seriously strong painkillers after my bug and was in bed by 9 most nights!! So we just took advantage of the beautiful scenery, warm sea and tried out some snorkeling.

Koh Phang Nan (24/11/07 - 27/11/07)

We caught a ferry over to a larger island called Koh Phang Nan, the beaches were a lot better here. We thought it was going to be really touristy as this is where the Full Moon Party is held every month, but we instantly really liked this island. We found it really hard getting accommodation, however we did find a bungalow with some other travellers 5 minutes from the party and we knew it had to be too good to be true. This photo is our bathroom, I'll say no more!!

The Full Moon Party was great, 11,000 people crammed on a small beach worshipping the moon. We managed to find some people amongst the crowds that we met on Koh Toa, which was really great as we got on with them so well.

We spent the whole night dancing, watching fire works and fire dancers, getting ourselves painted with UV body paint and of course sampling the local alcohol :)

That was until Rob and I got split up, which was not funny, there were so many people everywhere, we both luckily met back at the bungalow at 7am and watched the sunrise and went for a morning swim. After not sleeping for 30 hours we had a well earned nap after lunch.

After so much partying and not much sleep we were really tired and were really looking forward to relaxing on the beach for the next few days, especially as we are leaving the south islands for Singapore on 28.11.07.

We even treated ourselves to a bungalow that has a flushing toilet!!
Every night we watched the most beautiful sunsets over the sea. We both had a Thai oil massage at our resort's beach spa, which was amazing and so relaxing. We will be sad to say goodbye to these islands as we have some great memories from here, but we are very much looking forward to Singapore and Australia...

And for those who are wondering about the state of Robs beard, yes it is getting very long and very ginger. People have been calling him a leprechaun!

Week 6 (Bangkok and Phuket)

Week 6

Bangkok

(14/11/07 - 15/11/07)

We arrived back in Bangkok after a very bumpy ride from Cambodia. This was our second time in Bangkok so we decided to do something different to before and stay away from the backpacker areas. We ended up in the commercial business district of Siam.

The area was very busy and quite westernised. There were so many department stores, they had fake shopping malls that had 8 floors of fake goods in seemingly legitimate shops. Nearly every floor had a McDonalds and a Starbucks! It was very different to the Cambodia - where we were the day before.

We spent the day shopping and being typical tourists! The top level of the centre was the entertainment floor and it had a cinema, a bowling ally, a singing studio, a photo shoot studio, a karoke studio, video games, and hundreds of fast food restaurants. We were going to record our own song but decided to go for a game of bowling at the super funky cyber disco bowling lanes!

We also treated ourselves to a meal at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was really good fun, the portions were so big that we asked to take our left overs with us. We gave them to a poor mum and child we had seen begging before on the street and their eyes lit up, we were really glad that we thought to take it with us.

Phuket
(16/11/07 - 20/11/07)

We got to Phuket on the 16th and that night Jen was up all night being sick. We had gotten bad stomachs on our travels before but it was nothing compared to this. In the end I was really worried so I called an ambulance which took her straight to hospital where they treated Jen with a saline drip, antibiotics and pain killers. The one night-two day stay cost 400GPB which was fortunately covered by the insurance. The hospital was of a very high standard and the room we stayed in was nicer than any other we had stayed in while travelling!

When we weren't busy being in hospital we did get to spend some at the beach (which was beautiful). Jen was still very worn down so we didn't spend along time there because it was so hot.

Phuket is amazing the only real probem being that there are alot of package holiday tourists which really bumps the prices up and generates a commercial tourist culture in the towns.

Week 5 (Phnom Penh to Siem Reap)

Week 5
Cambodia - Phnom Penh

07/11/07 - 10/11/07

We travelled from Saigon to Phnom Penh via bus, the journey was a pretty smooth ride and we arrived in Phnom Penh in the late afternoon, when we arrived at the bus station we were literally bombarded with drivers begging us to use their taxi. We found one guy called Paddy who took us to a guesthouse on the lake called "Same same but different." That evening we just sat on the sun deck and took in the beautiful scenery while trying the local dish (Amok Curry) and chatting to other travellers.

Paddy took us all around Phnom Penh, we went to a shooting range where we had a go at shooting an AK47 and a hand gun, it was so loud and was really strange because we laughing around with these lethal weapons straight before we went to the killing fields of Choeung Ek, the place where Pol Pot had over 17,000 people killed. There were 8000 skulls on display in a beautiful Stupa in the middle of the field. We walked around the field where the killings had happened and there were still bones, teeth and clothes scattered all over the fields it was so shocking.

After that Paddy took us to the Tuol Sleug museum (S21) This used to be a secondary school, but Pol Pot had it turned into a prison. It was very different from the killing fields because it has been left exactly how it was found those 25 years ago. It was very easy to picture the pain and torture the people went through here, there was even still blood marks on the ceiling and walls. We saw thousands of photos taken at the time and could read stories from the victim's families still waiting for their loved ones to return home (sad stories considering out of the 14,000 people who were sent to S21 only 7 survived). It was a very emotional place for all.

We also went to the Grand Palace which was amazing, there were so many buildings within the grounds it was incredible, it was a lovely blue day as well so all the photos look fantastic. There has been so much money spent on the estate and so many homeless people just outside, it made us very sad. One room had a pure solid silver floor and one statue of a Buddha had 90 kilos of gold and was encrusted with 2086 diamonds!!

One of the best things we have done so far is visit an orphanage, it was such an eye opener, we decided to go for a walk and stumbled across this orphanage. We were greeted by loads of really happy and very polite children, we decided to go and buy all of them some food and when we asked them what they would like they all said fruit and vegetables!! (you don't get that in the UK). So three of the orphans came with us and we bought 4 bags of food, it was great because they could choose what they liked. We spent the morning with them and they put on a dance show for us, we were treated so well by them, they were hugging and kissing us all the time it was a fantastic experience and we felt really good about giving them a donation that we know will go to good use.

We walked to a Wat that is completely overrun by monkeys, we bought some bananas and fed all these very greedy but very cute monkeys for the afternoon. We did a lot of walking this day and we were shocked at the amount of litter there was and how people were living. We walked down some side alleys and there were metal sheds used for housing that were all flooded with litter floating around and rats running about.

Siem Reap

10/11/07 - 14/11/07

We decided to move on to Siem Reap so we caught a bus and we arrived late afternoon. In the evening we went to a music concert, a Cello performance by Dr. Beat in aid to raise money for the children's hospital, it was really fascinating as there were short films on the children, the war and the diseases as well as some fantastic music.

We got up early the following day and bought a three day pass to the Angkor temples. They were breath taking, to think that they are so old and were built by hand is unbelievable. The only slightly frustrating thing about visiting the temples was at every entrance to a temple there were loads of children begging for money and trying to get to to buy souvenirs, it was really draining as they are so persistent and you can't give to everyone otherwise you turn into a walking ATM.

We spent two days at the temples walking around and taking in the sites, the sunsets were incredible. We climbed to the top of this huge temple and just sat there for over an hour just watching the colours of the sky.

Our favourite temple was called Ta Prom, it is being eaten by the jungle. There are trees growing everywhere, in the temples, through the temples and even on top of the temples. It was so different from the other temples.

We made good friends with the hotel staff in Siem Reap and on Barangs day off he took us to a local village where we went fishing and chilled in the bar's hammocks, it was great. Barang just lay there for about an hour swinging in his hammock, eating 2 plates of shrimps and occasionally checking his bamboo rod to see if he had caught anything.

The night before we left to go back to Thailand the hotel staff bought a BBQ'd snake, frog and crickets for us try (how kind of them). We both tried the frog and liked that, not so keen on the snake and couldn't try the crickets!! They also made a cocktail with Cambodian rice wine. It was a really good night even with the snake. We were both very sad to leave, Cambodia for us has been a fantastic country with so much to see and do. We have learnt a lot about their struggles in life and despite all the hardship they have gone through they were one of the kindest and friendliest people we have met so far!

Week 4 (Dalat to Saigon)

Week 4

Dalat
01/11/07 - 02/01/07

We caught an overnight bus from Hoi An to Dalat, which was surprisingly a pretty comfortable journey. We arrived in Dalat only to be bombarded by hotel staff pleading us to stay at their hotel. We finally found one that was right in the centre of town and went for some dinner and a drink at a very local bar. We were approached by some men called the "Easy Riders" and after their very persuasive sales pitch agreed to go on a two day tour with them on the back of their very old school motorbikes all the way down to Saigon (300km)!

Early the next day we met our tour guides "Dave" and "Jean" who strapped our massive bags on the back of their bikes and we started our biking adventure.







As Jean and Dave were locals we were able to see "real" Vietnam. We saw loads of things that we wouldn't have if we were on a tourist bus. One of the things we saw were coffee plantations (left picture).







Over the next two days we also saw: tea plantations, the monks making incense sticks, a "crazy" house, flower markets, silk worms and a silk factory, mushroom farms, wood carving shops, rice paper making, local people making bamboo baskets, rubber trees, a tabacco farm and the "elephant waterfall" (left picture).





We also saw a very strange crocodile farm and so much countryside with so much greenery it was unbelievable.









On the bikes we also saw some very unusual sites including: countless pigs, ducks, hens, chickens and even a cow caged up on the back of motorbikes. We also saw cows running down the high way, people riding with their whole families on one motorbike, people carrying 1m blocks of ice (in the boiling heat), glass, tables and chairs and so many other random objects all on the back of a motorbike!!



Saigon
03/11/07 - 07/11/07

We arrived into Saigon on 03/11/07 and we were amazed at how different the city was compared to the other places we have visited in Vietnam. It is so busy, so polluted and so high tech. It is called the mini Tokyo and we definitely know why!!

This is the view from our bedroom window-obviously all the wires are very safe???!!!









We did a lot of the touristy things in Saigon, we visited the Notre Dame Cathedral, a huge shopping center, where we went into their food section and dribbled over all the English imported foods!







The thing that is so apparent here in Saigon as opposed to the other places we have visited in Vietnam is the money and lots of it. It is really strange, one minute you are down a street with people begging for money where they are living in really run down houses and then you turn down another street and it is like we are in Paris, with their 5 star hotels, all the designer shops and so many very expensive cars.




The rain here is unbelievable, we were having an ice-cream in the sun shine when the heavens opened up. We ran in for shelter and waited for about twenty minutes, we bought some very fetching ponchos and started walking home. Although it had only been raining for about twenty minutes the roads had turned into rivers and the water already came up to our shins!!





We took some time out and visited the war museum, which was so interesting but so so sad. Some of the pictures were so graphic that people were crying. We learnt a lot about the war, the people involved, how it affected the country and the people at the time and also how people how been affected now.






We also went to visit the Cu Chi tunnels which were built by hand by the Cu Chi people of South Vietnam during the war as a way to hide, to live, to prepare for battles and hold meetings. The tunnels were tiny, we had an opportunity to enter one of the tunnels and experience how the Cu Chi people lived for 10 years, a very scary prospect!




Next stop.... Cambodia!