Jamesandellie's Blog

Finally made it back to Bangkok at about 2am after leaving Ko Phangan by ferry, passing through a nice big storm then bus back from Chumporn. Set off for Chatuchak weekend market the next morning, a vast collection of over 15,000 stalls selling pretty much anything you could possibly ever want, so we set about buying the rest of our souvenirs and presents in an exhausting 4 hour traipse from stall to stall, mainly getting completely lost down all the mazes of shops! Finally found our way back out and headed back into the city centre via the skytrain to Siam Square, full of fancy designer shopping malls and lots of Japanese people dressed as weird anime people, apparently some kind of Japan day in Bangkok! Ellie was much more impressed with the shopping than me, by this point I was thoroughly bored, so much so that I followed a man in a Nemo costume around the mall! Got on another skytrain to Lumphini Park for a wander round and to watch the evening aerobics classes then got a metro and a bus back to the hotel, Bangkok has very good and easy public transport which is just as well because the roads are permanently full of traffic! Had a slightly less drunken night out on the KSR this time around, mainly because it was election day in Thailand so the pubs couldn’t serve alcohol! No signs of any unrest this time around which is lucky!

Headed to the river for a new form of public transport, river ferries, to the Royal Palace and Wat Phra Kaew which both looked very impressive from the outside although we didn’t actually go in, partly because it was really expensive and partly because we’ve seen enough temples to last a life time! Instead wandered around the surrounding markets and spent the entrance fee money on a lucky Buddha head – very cool! Not content with our market visits so far we headed to chinatown, which is basically one big market. Found Sampeng Lane, which must be the worlds longest shopping street and wandered along it for hours without managing to buy anything except lunch, it seemed to be more for wholesale than retail. Made our way back to KSR for some more wandering up and down, discovered that the sellers double their already inflated prices after dark which didn’t go down at all well! Spent our last day packing before heading off on a nice convaluted trip on public transport to the airport by bus, metro, taxi and airport train and waved goodbye to Thailand – the end of an epic and amazing trip with some fantastic memories! Will have a think and post some kind of highlights page when we get back – see you all soon!

Finally the part of our trip that we had been looking forward to for quite a while now – lying on a beach and doing nothing! After 5 crazy months of non-stop sightseeing and moving about it was time to take a break and relax. After a pretty easy overnight bus down to Chumporn (in the most modern bus I’ve ever seen) we got a boat across to Ko Tao, arriving in hot sunshine which looked very promising! Decided to head to Ao Tanote beach on the east coast of the island which sounded like the perfect mix of isolation and great snorkelling and we weren’t disappointed! Got a nice little bungalow complete with hammock and headed straight down to the beach to check out the snorkelling – which was incredible! It was like swimming in an aquarium there were so many fish and the visibility must have been several metres, definitely one of the best places I’ve ever been snorkelling. Spent 6 nights at the same beach and didn’t manage to leave once, although we did get a bit browner and we did plenty of relaxing and snorkelling – it was nice just to be in one place for more than a couple of days without having to worry about anything! Although we didn’t end up seeing much of the island it really is an incredibly beautiful place – would love to come back and do some more exploring – maybe if they improve the roads a bit!

After a week we finally dragged ourselves off the beach and headed straight to another beach, this time on Ko Phangan. We picked Thong Nai Pan, far enough from the crowds of Haad Rin but close enough so we could go to the full moon party without too much effort, and the beach was amazing too! For the first couple of days we did pretty much the same as in Ko Tao, sunbathing, sleeping, eating and swimming – no snorkelling at this beach unfortunately, then it was time for Full Moon Party! Luckily there was a storm which meant we couldn’t go by boat, instead we got a nice minibus with a nutter of a driver on some terrible roads but we got there alive and set about getting into the party atmosphere. Steered well clear of the sangsom this time – only vodka buckets for me. Never seen anything quite like Full Moon before, an entire beach packed with people all getting hammered and raving away. There were about 9 or 10 different bars each with their own djs and sound system and plenty of fire juggling, fire skipping, fire slides, fire poi etc going on. Met up with Daniel, our kiwi friend, and spent the evening wandering up and down the beach going from bar to bar and fire show to fire show! Pulled myself away from the action to go and watch the football at around 2, ended up watching the game in an emergency medical clinic next to the beach with a couple of other Spurs fans which was very random, especially with all the injured people coming and going and bleeding all over the floor on the way! Not sure why the medical people let us watch it there – I doubt our cheering was helping the patients much – but very nice of them anyway! Next day was a bit of a write off as we didn’t get back to bed til gone 7, although got a great view over Ko Samui and the sunrise as we made our way back over the hills to the other side of the island. Spent the next couple of days doing much the same as before, sleeping, sunbathing, swimming etc until sadly our time on the beach had to come to an end and we had to head back to Bangkok for the final chapter of our epic trip!

Left Battambang by bus around midday (finally we got a lie in!) and headed off to the border at Poipet to be signed out of Cambodia and into the Land of Smiles! We weren’t smiling at all when we found out, despite what the internet says, that you can’t get 30 day visas at this border, which meant that we were going to have a nice big fine of 2000 Baht (40 quid) to pay at the airport when we leave – not a good start!! At least our bus to Bangkok was pretty comfortable and didn’t take too long so we arrived on the famous Khao San Road just in time to check in to a hotel and head out for some dinner. The Khao San really isn’t quite what I was expecting, more Vang Vieng but on a much bigger, crazier scale – instead it’s actually quite civilised and not very rundown at all! Plenty of market stalls and street sellers with vastly overpriced goods and plenty of bars with buckets of sang som – all too tempting so I gave in and ordered a big jug of beer, then a big bucket of sangsom. By the time those were finished I was well up for partying, which lasted all of one drink into the next club then I had to go back to the hotel and the next thing I knew I was sitting on the floor in the shower washing sick off myself – classy!!! The next day, unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel very good! Spent most of the day wandering around the Khao San Road and Soi Rambuttri (which is a bit more what I expected the Khao San Road to be like – and is much nicer than the KSR too) checking out the market stalls and hiding from the sun in cafes! At least this evening we are heading off on an overnight bus (the boat) down to Ko Tao for some relaxation and beach time!

After a glowing report on the boat from someone we met in Siem Reap we were feeling a lot more positive about the trip so we set off at the crack of dawn for a short bus ride down to the river (after oversleeping and being woken up by the hotel staff!). Set off through the floating village of Chhong Kneas on the Northern shore of the Tonle Sap and were soon out onto the huge lake, making our way through tons and tons of riverweed. The rickety old boat (which wobbled every time someone switched sides) was a little bit worrying, but the scenery was so good that we soon forgot about the possibility of drowning, especially once we had made our way across the top of the lake to the river which leads down to Battambang. The first part of the river trip passes through protected wetlands where there were loads of birds (not sure what type, but apparently some of them are quite rare – dread to think what all the boat traffic is doing to their homes!). The banks of the river, even in the protected wetlands, were literally lined with hundreds of floating villages which bobbed up and down in the wake of our speed boat. It was amazing to see so many people living on the water with completely normal houses (tvs, dogs, shops and even monks!) and seeing the locals going about their daily business fishing or trading or just swimming and waving to us as we went past. Eventually the river began to get very narrow and bendy towards Battambang and the boat began to have a few problems, it broke down at least three times (they used sellotape to fix the engine!!!) and with the narrow river and hairpin bends the longboat started to struggle, crashing through the overhanging branches several times, not ideal for us sat at the back of the boat! Eventually after 9 long hours we pulled into Battambang and got a tuk-tuk to a hotel only to be greeted by an enormous rainstorm which flooded the streets and put an end to the day!

The next morning we set off on a sightseeing trip around Battambang with a tuk-tuk driver we met at the Smokin Pot restaurant (highly recommended should you ever find yourself in Battambang!). First stop was the bamboo railway, probably the best mode of transport ever invented!!! It consists of two sets of wheels that look like weights with a bamboo tray over the top and a little engine sat over the back wheels. The trains are still used by the locals to go between markets and along the fields, but mainly now for tourists since more roads have been built around the area. They run along the old track that the French put in place many years ago, which would probably derail a real train, but the bamboo trains fly (almost literally at times when you hit a warped bit) along them at quite a high speed as far as a tiny little market village where you stop for a drink and to meet the locals before heading back the same way. On the way back we met some traffic coming the other way which meant we had to get off our train and take it apart to let the others through – very odd! Then a bit further along some locals popped out of a bush and jumped on the back of our train for a free ride down to another bush where they promptly disappeared again! Amazing experience, if it wasn’t so expensive I would have done it again and again!!! Unfortunately the bamboo railway is going to be shut down at the end of the year as Cambodia finally gets round to building a new railway line so real trains can operate again – not half as fun as a bamboo train though.

After that excitement we headed off to a nearby temple with some resident fruit bats living in the trees then onwards through amazingly green rice paddies to one of the many huge limestone outcrops in the area. We walked up to the top to some caves which had been used by the Khmer Rouge for throwing people in to kill them during the war – it seems everywhere you go has some kind of awful Khmer Rouge history, there are still machine gun emplacements outside the temples. The hilltop is now home to several temples with some very friendly monks and some incredible views over the flat landscape below with thousands of paddy fields stretching in every direction, we watched as some huge rainstorms passed across in front of us blocking out half the landscape – luckily we didn’t get too wet. Our final stop on the way back was another nearby temple on a smaller hill with some amazing murals painted inside, and yet more friendly monks who insisted we took photos of the murals!! In between driving around we spent a lot of time talking to our tuk-tuk driver, Saro, who spoke really good English which meant we could find out lots of interesting things about Cambodia and local life – always interesting to talk to local people to learn a bit more about the culture. After a really great day we headed back into Battambang to chill out for the evening and book our cooking course at the Smokin’ Pot for the next morning.

The next morning our cooking course started with a trip to the local market with the restaurant owner to pick up all the ingredients and to explain what everything in the market was and what it was used for – very interesting as a lot of what is on offer is completely different to what you’d find in any English supermarket!! Our first dish was a fish amok curry (Ellie’s favourite), which was a kind of late breakfast – although very very delicious! Next up was a spicy beef stir fry which was equally delicious although by this time (it was about 11am) we were pretty stuffed already and we still had one more course to go! Last was a sour chicken soup which was probably my favourite of the three – by this time we really were too stuffed to move anywhere. All throughout we had really close supervision and clear instructions on what to use, how to prepare or chop up the ingredients, what order to put everything in, how to cook it etc (they even let us loose with meat cleavers – not surprising when you see the amount of tiny children wandering around with them too!). At the end we even got a cook book with some favourite Cambodian and Thai recipes so if you’re nice, maybe we’ll cook some for you all when we get back!! Spent the rest of the afternoon feeling very fat wandering around Battambang and taking in the nice atmosphere of the town (trying not to get too over-excited about the impending start of the football season!). Definitely one of our favourite places so far on our travels, a really nice laid back town with super friendly people and lots of nice sights in the vicinity (and of course the bamboo train) – a good way to sign off on Cambodia as we make our way to Thailand tomorrow…

Found ourselves a friendly tuk-tuk driver on arrival into Siem Reap who dropped us off at a $1 a night guest house and gave us a good sales pitch on taking us around the temples for the next 3 days – after a good bit of bargaining we agreed and set out an itinerary. Guest house is nice but the $1 “room” is an outside dorm with a mosquito net and mattress and plenty of free mosquitos! Ours came with a bonus kitten who likes to try and break into our mosquito nets in the middle of the night!

Met up with a South African guy called KJ to do the temple sightseeing with which was cool, another new travelling buddy for us! After picking up our passes we headed out to the North of Siem Reap for some of the outlying temples, first up was Banteay Srei – a fairly small temple with some great carvings, a nice introduction to the temples of Angkor. I won’t go into too much detail on here about each temple or it will take hours, probably easier to check out the photos via my links on facebook and if you’re really interested i’m sure there are hundreds of websites with lots of historical info! Next stop was something a little different, Kbal Spean (the river of a thousand lingas), an amazing set of carvings along a riverbed and in waterfalls set in the jungle. Had a bit of an unfortunate incident with a mosquito whilst going to the loo in a bush – not very comfortable to say the least!! After a lunch break we headed off to the South to visit the Roluos group of temples – some of the earliest permanent Angkorian temples from the 9th Century. Some of these were pretty ruined, hardly surprising considering they’re over a thousand years old, which made the ones that were still in good shape even more impressive (even if they have had some conservation work done on them). That ended day one’s excitement, a nice easy introduction to the temples, building up towards the big ones!

On day two we decided to start a bit later to give ourselves a much needed lie-in (not really possible in an outside dorm, especially as Cambodians like to wake up around half 4 and make a lot of noise!). Luckily for us the sun was shining which provided much better light conditions than the first day which had been pretty gloomy. First stop was Banteay Kdei, a huge temple with a maze of tunnels running through the centre.  Outside the main gate was Sra Srang (the Pool of Ablutions), the worlds biggest bathroom for the Kings of Angkor – a huge lake where they used to wash and do their business, very hygienic! We saw local people still using it to wash in (and no doubt do their business too) – at least it’s nice and scenic! The next stop of our busy day was Ta Prohm, aka the Tombraider temple, which was really impressive with loads of huge trees growing around and over the temple walls. I had great fun avoiding all the tourists and climbing over piles of ancient rubble to find the quieter parts of the temple – probably our favourite temple so far. Next stop was Ta Keo before some street food lunch – and lots of pestering from the kids that hang round outside all the temples trying to sell all sorts “for money to send them to school” which clearly goes straight into their parents pockets unfortunately! Some of the kids are too cute to resist however so we have picked up a few souvenirs! After lunch we set off to Preah Khan temple just north of Angkor Thom city, a huge temple complex with lots more maze like corridors and some more impressive carvings. For such ancient people the carvings really are quite spectacular, unfortunately however, many of them have been hacked off or damaged by idiots so lots of the carvings and statues are now headless. Having spent way too long exploring the previous temples and with some black clouds looming we hurried through the next couple of sights, Preah Neak Pean – a slightly underwhelming sets of ponds around a central temple, Ta Som – a nice small temple with some friendly kids outside who we taught the 2p game to (not sure where they had got a 2p coin from!) and East Mebon, a big temple with some cool elephant statues which was once in the middle of a huge reservoir that has now dried up and turned back into jungle. Last stop for the day was Pre Rup, a nice temple with a great view over the surrounding landscape for sunset – not the best sunset ever but pretty special to be sitting on top of an ancient temple watching the sun go down. Another early night after a long day of scrambling around ruins, especially as we had organised for Ni (our tuk-tuk driver) to pick us up at 4:45am in time for sunset at Angkor Wat!

For once we were very grateful to the 4:30 wake up call by the Cambodians as we had managed to sleep through our alarm and just about managed to make it to Angkor Wat in time to see the sky start to lighten. Joined the crowds around the pond in front of the temple and watched the huge towers slowly come out of the darkness – a really amazing sight despite the lack of decent sunrise, it really is huge! Feeling pretty sleepy we headed straight to Angkor Thom after sunset to save Angkor Wat for last and to make the most of the nice sunlight on the east facing temples in the ancient walled city. First stop was the Bayon, definitely my favourite temple of all, with its 216 huge faces of Avalokiteshvara smiling down from the towers all around. The carvings and bas-reliefs here are pretty impressive too, depicting all sorts of stories from the Angkorian time – mainly battles! Next stop was the Baphuon temple with an impressive raised causeway but unfortunately the temple is entirely under reconstruction so you can’t go in! Not sure if I agree with entirely rebuilding a temple as it had pretty much all collapsed over the years and the new concrete blocks look a bit out of place against the original ancient weather beaten blocks. The rest of the temples around the Angkor Thom city are much smaller and the Royal Palace has entirely disappeared but most of the rest of them are in a more ruined state which I think makes them more atmospheric (and more fun to climb around the piles of old stones!). Most impressive are the terraces outside what used to be the Royal Palace – the Terrace of the Elephants – a huge long platform with amazing carvings of hundreds of elephants and the Terrace of the Leper King – a much taller but smaller platform with carvings of nymphs, warriors, princesses and other figures from Angkor civilisation. Inside the terrace is a hidden terrace which was covered by an outer wall and the carvings on this wall are really well preserved and look absolutely amazing! Opposite the Royal Palace area are a load of very old looking towers which apparently entertainers used to walk between on tightropes to entertain the King!

After a long lunch and a little nap on the restaurant table to recharge we set off for Angkor Wat – the climax of our temple experience so only right to keep the best/biggest til last. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and we had to shelter inside the tuk-tuk whilst a big rainstorm passed over (the joys of travelling through Cambodia in the wet season!!!). Luckily it didn’t last too long and so we headed off along the long causeway (along with all the Japanese tour groups), past the moat, through the entrance pavillion and into Angkor Wat itself. We started off around the outside of the temple, each outer wall has two bas-reliefs, one either side of each gate, detailing Hindu folklore tales from ancient battles or worship – absolutely incredible carvings, for me probably more impressive than the temple itself. The inside of the temple is impressive for its size and the fact it is on three levels, but as a temple the structure isn’t quite as amazing as some of the others as it doesn’t have any really interesting features (and we weren’t allowed to go up to the top floor which was very annoying!). Spent a good couple of hours exploring all the corridors and courtyards before heading around the outside of the temple to see it as a whole from all different angles. Also found lots of wild monkeys scavenging around the outside, they had stolen some coconuts from some locals and were busy fighting over those! Stuck around until sunset to watch the last of the light go down over the temple, again not the most impressive sunset but the peace and quiet of the little temple in the grounds and the fact that we were sat outside Angkor Wat watching the sunset made it really amazing. Headed back along the long main causeway where we got stopped by a local family for a photo, turned out they wanted a photo of us holding their baby – the baby was not keen on being held by Ellie so the poor couple now have a random photo of some white people holding their screaming child – very strange!! Got one last glimpse of Angkor Wat as we headed out through the main gate as the sun disappeared over the horizon, an amazing end to a very long tiring day and back to the guesthouse for a well deserved beer!

After three days of hardcore temple sightseeing and lots of scrambling up and down rocks and steep staircases (the Angkor people must have had tiny feet and long legs to get up and down!) we took a well earned day off to sleep and eat and upload the hundreds of photos – if you think there are lots on Snapfish now you should have seen how many I started with!!! Luckily there’s not a great deal to see around Siem Reap itself so we’re not missing out on much there, I think the town has grown from the tourist boom and is pretty much just full of hotels, restaurants and bars! Looking forward to a nice early night tonight before another early start tomorrow for the boat trip to Battambang across the Tonle Sap – fingers crossed the weather is ok and it doesn’t turn into the boat trip from hell like last time…

Had a bit of trouble getting off to sleep after the genocide museum and killing fields, images of all the poor faces and skulls going round in both our heads. Not easy to comprehend the whole thing, especially the huge scale. Not easy to put into words for some reason… Makes you wonder how the Cambodians feel about it all, yet for the most part they’re all so friendly and happy looking so it’s very difficult to tell, perhaps they’re just glad it’s over.

Still feeling a bit traumatised we headed off on a nice long bus journey to Kratie, in the East of the country in search of some peace and quiet and some rare freshwater dolphins. Made a stop off in possibly my favourite town yet, Skuon, where no sooner had I stepped off the bus I was accosted by a band of girls all shouting “hello mr handsome, buy some pineapple”- a good start! When I discovered where we were and mentioned spiders (I had read in LP that Skuon was famous for fried spiders) I was quickly dragged off round the market by my new group of friends and shown platters of fried spiders, crickets and other insects as well as live spiders that all the kids had as pets in their pockets. Wasn’t so keen about having them placed all over me though! After declining the fried insects and spiders we set off to see the other delicacies in the market like the fried whole ducks and other birds and all kinds of meat – and for good measure, a live monkey that was tied up next to the toilets that only liked boys apparently! Rest stop over, I left my new friends after buying a  couple of bags of fruit (and a lot of sad faces from the kids who I didn’t buy anything from!).

Finally rolled into Kratie around lunch time and set straight off on the back of a motorbike for the bumpy trip up through lots of wooden villages and smiling faces to a tiny village called Kampi which is where the dolphins hang out. Headed out into the middle of the very swollen and fast flowing Mekong with our driver/guide who very quickly found the dolphins so we drifted around in the currents watching them swim upstream, jumping around in the swirling water – an amazing experience and very relaxing to be floating around on the vast river amongst the submerged trees! After an hour the driver decided he’d had enough and headed back, despite us paying for 90 minutes, which didn’t go down well at all but our protests were met with “No speak English”. Ellie decided to take matters into her own hands and turned green and ripped off her clothes and threatened to eat all the dolphins. Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration, but she did go and find a tourist policeman and calmly explained the situation so he gave the driver a bit of a ticking off and we agreed we’d go back out and finish the trip off. In a bit of a strop, the driver motored out to the middle of the river where the dolphins were playing and moored up to a tree and went and sat in a huff at the other end of the boat while we got a close up view of the dolphins jumping around the boat. After our time was up we wanted to head back but the driver decided we should stay out and see the sunset, at first we thought maybe he was making it up to us but then realised he was after more money so made him head back. He still tried to get some more money from us, but even the other boat drivers laughed at him – I think his street cred went down a fair bit after being told off by a girl! On the plus side, at least we had a great afternoon on the river and saw plenty of Irrawaddy dolphins, which (despite the fact we actually saw quite a few) are very rare and only number around 75 in all of the Laos and Cambodian stretch of the Mekong – I think we can count ourselves pretty lucky to have seen any at all! On the way back we stopped off at a hill top temple for the sunset, which then promptly disappeared behind the clouds – nice temple and very friendly monks though! Had a nice street food dinner and chilled out with the lovely locals, shame in the end that we didn’t stay an extra day but as the guesthouse owner pointed out to us, there really is nothing to do around here!

Up very early for a ten hour bus to Siem Reap the next day, via our new favourite town of Skuon. Unfortunately our rest stop was in a different part of town than the market where I made all my friends, but there were plenty more people with live and fried spiders at this rest stop too! Felt a bit braver and tried a spider leg which turned out to be delicious to ended up buying a whole one to eat – the legs are kind of crunchy and taste like nik naks and the meat in the body (surprisingly quite a lot) tasted a little like chicken! Declined the fried cockroaches, sparrows and other unidentified objects, which I have a feeling may have been some kind of brain! After lunch was over the guys from the restaurant made us all pose with a live spider on us then pulled out the real party tricks – putting live spiders in their mouths!!! (see the snapfish pictures via my facebook link). After that entertaining little break we transferred buses to a nice big luxury bus, which then promptly broke down half way to Siem Reap, then started again, then broke down again, but eventually made it to Siem Reap in one piece after some fiddling with the engine! Long days travel, not ideal preparation for 3 days of temple sightseeing, but at long last we’ve finally seen some good wildlife

After a tour of the rest of Sihanoukville to pick up passengers we finally got underway for Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia. The roads around here are much improved from those when we first got into the country and we were treated to an awesome Chinese Kung-fu movie which kept us entertained for the trip! Dropped our stuff off at our guesthouse and headed straight out for some exploration as we’d decided a day and a half was enough to see the city! Started off with Psar Russei, a huge market across from our guesthouse, for some lunch but not quite so good for shopping! Headed off across town to the riverfront for a visit to the royal palace and silver pagoda, however due to royal business the palace was closed and they weren’t budging on the already too expensive admission fee so we decided to skip that, which turned out to be a great move as we bumped into the King heading out on royal business – he even waved at us out of his car as he drove out of the palace gates, very exciting! Got my picture taken with one of the sentries once the excitement had died down, not as disciplined as the ones outside Buckingham palace but he did have a cool gun

Next stop was Wat Ounaloum, founded in 1443 and the central temple of Buddhism in Cambodia and home of Papa Monk, or whatever they call their leader! Not the most impressive temple, but behind the main temple was a stupa which apparently contained one of the real Buddhas eyebrow hairs! No sign of that, but we were invited in by a very old man who conducted some kind of blessing for us by lighting incense (and a cigarette) and spraying us with holy water and chanting something – hopefully it was a good blessing, his only English word was temple so we’ll never know what he said! Very interesting experience anyway, and a good start to our whistle-stop tour of Phnom Penh! After a wander along the pretty scummy waterfront we headed off to Psar Toul Tompong, the Russian Market, so named because the Russians used to shop here! Plenty of genuine knock offs from the factories around Cambodia, along with an awful lot of fakes and a lot of other touristy type stuff! Managed to haggle for a few souvenirs and chat to a few locals, most Cambodians speak very impressive English which makes things very easy (and us very lazy when it comes to picking up some Khmer). Retrieved our tuk-tuk driver and headed back for some dinner and a well earned rest.

Organised for the same tuk-tuk driver to be our transport/guide for the next day for a very full on day of sightseeing. After a quick breakfast we visited Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (aka S21 security prison during the Pol Pot regime) – not a nice place at all! Surrounded by barbed wire and high walls, the huge prison was housed in what used to be a school and looked pretty gruesome from the outside. The inside however was pretty horrific, most of the cells had been left pretty much in tact (including a few blood stains) and the rest of the buildings had been filled with all the photographs that the Khmer Rouge had taken of each prisoner when they had been arrested and sent here. Face after face of Cambodians from tiny children to old men and women lined up, room after room, really chilling as every one of them was tortured and murdered, most of them would probably have ended up at our next stop, the Choung Ek killing fields. Before heading their we watched an interesting documentary following the stories of people who had died at the prison, including commentaries from living relatives and even one of the only seven survivors (out of around 20,000) from the prison. Perhaps most interesting was the interview with the former prison guard who explained what had happened in the prison and how he had driven people to the killing fields and executed them with a metal bar.

A short drive outside of Phnom Penh, we followed the route from Tuol Sleng to the killing fields that the prison trucks would have taken, full of prisoners on their way to be executed. At first glance, the killing fields are a nice peaceful orchard with a lake and some fruit trees, however as we carried on round we came to the pits where they had brutally murdered so many people and dumped them. What struck me was how small the pits were and how many people they had killed and filled into each one, a really cruel and inhumane way to die. Watched another video detailing some of the events and visited the small museum on site for some pretty shocking facts and figures, such as babies being smashed against trees. The Cambodian government puts the death toll at around 3 million – a huge figure for about 3 and a half years of Khmer Rouge control, seeing and reading about the horrific events was a real eye-opener, especially as I remember the end of the conflict and the death of Pol Pot in 1998. Perhaps for that reason, or because it affected virtually everyone alive in the country today in some way, it somehow seems much more real and much more shocking. To bring it all home, at the end of the walk around the fields is a huge temple filled with 17 levels of clothing remains, skulls and other bone pieces found when they excavated 86 of the 120+ mass graves, finding nearly 9000 bodies, with countless more still buried here and in hundreds of other places throughout the country. Chatted to our tuk-tuk driver about it a bit after, he seemed more interested in what we thought, his only remark was that Pol Pot was a crazy man – an understatement if ever there was one!

After a mentally draining morning learning about the very recent, awful history of Cambodia we headed back into the city for some more market browsing – first back to the Russian market for another look at the knock off goods, then to the huge and very impressive art-deco style Psar Thmei (Central market) which was equally full of knock off goods along with a lot of (probably fake) jewellery and a million and one other things. Unfortunately, these marketeers weren’t half as friendly or half as willing to bargain down to a sensible price so we left fairly swiftly (also because our tuk-tuk driver was tired and wanted to go home!). In fairness, we were very tired and wanted to go home too and have some quiet time to reflect on what we had seen and learnt in the morning. That brought to and end our time in Phnom Penh, not half as bad as many fellow travellers had made it out to be but still glad to be going out to the relative peace and quiet of the countryside in Kratie tomorrow…

Arrival into Sihanoukville was much less dramatic than into Kampot as we were dropped off straight outside our guesthouse! Waited for the rain to stop and headed straight for Occheauteal Beach (just across the road), a nice long sandy beach full of deck chairs and hawkers! Chose a nice sandy spot right in the path of the oncoming salespeople and were immediately set upon by tons of kids selling bracelets and women offering everything from lobster to hair removal treatment! Managed to wangle a couple of free ‘friendship’ bracelets from a kid named Frank (“the Tank” as we christened him) on the “promise”that we might buy some later! Endless sales pitches got a bit tiring after a while as the only way to escape them was to go in the sea and even then you got offered jet ski rides! Had a little wander round our area of town and found a cool funfair and some hideously expensive street food, but managed to find a very tasty, friendly restaurant where Ellie discovered fish amok, a local curry which she is now slightly addicted to! The next day the sun was out and things were looking up as we headed back to the beach to sort out tan lines and be hassled for the day! Met up with Daniel, our Kiwi friend who we first met weeks ago in Laos and had been bumping into on and off throughout Vietnam – luckily he seemed to be a hit with the sellers so we had a little bit of peace and quiet! Managed to get some impressive red patches to go with the already dodgy looking tans, but had a great day on the beach enjoying some sunshine at long last! Headed back to our new favourite restaurant for some more delicious local food then an early night before our trip out to Koh Rung island.

The weather started off quite nicely as we battled our way through the hundreds of trucks queued up at Sihanoukville port to offload their cargo onto the waiting cargo boats, however as we headed out of the safety of the harbour things took a dramatic turn for the worse! What started off as being nice photogenic black clouds on the horizon soon turned into be a huge raging storm right over the bay, with us stuck bang in the middle. It didn’t take long before visibility was down to a few metres and the boat was being drenched by rain and rocked around by the wind and waves. To make things worse our captain kept peering out of his window trying to figure out where the island he was aiming for had disappeared to (and pointing to the life jackets and laughing which made everyone feel a whole lot better about the situation!). Just as things were starting to look pretty bad, the outline of an island started to loom on the horizon, but unfortunately, not being able to see, we’d found the wrong island! Luckily, our island wasn’t too far away and the rain began to die down enough for us to see where we were heading. The sea wasn’t quite finished with us yet though as we took a pounding from the waves rolling in off the open sea around the island – not a fun experience, everyone was very very relieved when we finally made it to the pier on Koh Rung, just as the weather began to cheer up – not a good start to Ellie’s birthday! Soaked to the skin, we headed along to the beach to try and dry off a bit (Ellie in her pyjamas as she had no other dry clothes!). Got a good afternoon of sunshine so I managed to do some exploration around the coast, a lot of rock climbing and some amazing deserted white sand beaches, while Ellie made the most of a brief sunbathing opportunity! This really is the kind of island that you dream of when you think of the Gulf of Thailand, only a tiny fishing village with friendly locals and a few more adventurous tourists and divers in the small resort. The good weather didn’t last long and we were treated to a couple of spectacular storms that night which set the tone for the next 2 days – rain, rain and yet more rain! It didn’t stop raining for 2 whole days as storm after storm passed over us and the beach was half washed away by the islands many streams which had turned into raging torrents! Managed to find some phosphorescence despite all the rain which was very cool, however after all the rain the sea turned brown with silt so that cancelled out any plans for snorkelling and late night phosphorescence swimming! Sat out the 2 days of rain in the resort restaurant (when I say resort, this is more of a collection of wooden beach huts and a bigger wooden beach hut restaurant – but with very tasty food including a proper fry up english breakfast!). Spent most of the two days eating and lazing around, at least we were joined by Daniel again which made things more entertaining!

Finally the weather cheered up on our last day on the island so we made the most of the sun and lazed about on the (decimated) beach and finally managed to dry out all of our soaked stuff (and clean the rat/dog wee off some of our belongings – not cool at all). Unfortunately the sea was still far too cloudy to snorkel, shame for all the people who were out there doing their PADI courses! Got the ferry (small fishing boat) back to Sihanoukville in the afternoon, a nice flat calm crossing, a stark contrast to our trip out to the island. Ellie somehow managed to feel sea sick despite the flat sea, having not suffered any ill effects during the battering we took on the first crossing! Bit of a shock to arrive back in civilisation having not seen any vehicles other than boats for 4 days, however at least it was a nice gentle re-introduction before heading to Phnom Penh early the next morning!