Phnom Penh

Amy currently reading: 'The Girl in the Picture' Denise Chong
Gem currently reading: 'The Constant Gardener' John le Carre
Both currently listening to: Amy version (on repeat) of Rob Thomas

The next place we visited was Phnom Penh which had a particularly somber tone to it since we spent our time learning about the atrocities of what happened to the Cambodian people during and after the Civil War. We visited the S-21 prison which was a high school before being turned into a security prison for people supposedly against the regime. These people are the ones that didn't fit the stereotype - people who had lived in urban areas, had an education, wore glasses, followed a different religion...men, women and children.

They were taken to the prison, tortured until they signed their name to a list of crimes and most of them were then executed. The executions took place at the killing fields and the bodies were buried in mass graves. What's now left is a field with big holes where the bodies were found and signs up to explain what was discovered and where, a cabinet full of the skulls and all the clothes they retrieved. There is still a large section of land which potentially has more graves that has not yet been uncovered.

On the more positive side of Phnom Penh, we were picked up from the bus station by a straight faced Sloth lookalike (from the Goonies...Chunk's friend!? anyone a fan? http://ilovetheworld.co.uk/images/goonies.jpg ), we ran into John, Chris, Jim and Charlie who we had met in Siem Reap, went for dinner with them and they were meeting another couple called Anna and AJ, turns out I went on a french work experience with Anna in sixth form! Amy ate sunday roast, we both ate ice cream, we met an excellent Cambodian moto driver who thought everything was hilarious and didn't stop laughing for the whole journey, we discovered hammocks and incense that kills mosquitos so they don't eat you alive in the night. Oh, and we bartered the tuk tuk driver who took us to the killing fields down from $15 to $7...we are getting good at this :)

We have also found out that Amy is a Climacophobic- has fear of stairs, climbing, or of falling downstairs....

See ya!

P.S.

....I forgot to tell you all that a ghecko fell on Amy's head and it was the funniest thing EVER! :)

Mission Very Possible

Your mission if you choose to accept it is to find THE TREE and take some most excellent photographs of it...this message will not self destruct in five seconds or indeed any amount of seconds because it is a blog.

Siem Reap is mostly known for Angkor Wat which we spent three days looking around. These are temples which were uncovered by the french after they were left to the mercy of the jungle. According to people who like to talk...the Cambodians knew it was there the whole time but never did anything about it. This is speculation of course.

So the first two days we went by tuk tuk to the temples and on the third day for a change of pace we went on the motorbikes. The tree story - for those of you that I haven't bored with it (sorry Ayms!) is that I found an excellent photo on the internet of a cool looking tree and decided that I needed to take this particular photo for myself. I then explained to Amy that we would need to go in search of this tree when we reached Angkor Wat and we wouldn't stop till we found it. The truth of the matter is that it's a fairly famous tree...apparently I'm not alone in my adoration (for want of a better word, suggestions on a postcard please) and it is the subject of many photos, postcards and drawings all around the country, so it wasn't too hard to find at all. Although there was one hairy moment when we found a similar looking tree and debated it's authenticity as 'THE TREE'. We got the photos and I went home happy that day.

We also visited the butterfly garden in Siem Reap also known as the butterfly cemetary since there are as many dead ones as live ones. Apparently butterflies are quite stupid creatures and think it smart to rest on the path when people are walking on it?!

To the Scottish fans of the website...we met a woman who runs a bar in the town (with very good food) who's brother lives in Hoik (Gem's spelling) AKA Hawick (Amy's CORRECT spelling!) Stories were exchanged, giggles were had, everyone left smiling.

Siem Reap is also the birthplace of Justin Timberlake (JT)...one of the dudes that was working in our hostel who was particularly funny and took somewhat of a liking to our Amybelle :) She didn't really reciprocate his feelings - this could have been because of the long-distance issue or maybe that he was a whole foot shorter ;) Even after a rendition of How Do I Live Without You? Amy couldn't be persuaded. Other characters from the hostel worth mentioning are Superman, this guy was a fan of taking his shirt off and posing for no particular reason, and another dude who talked a lot about his girlfriend from Japan - sounded like a really serious relationship that was about to go wrong since she'd stopped returning his phone calls but in real life she had just been a guest at the hostel for a few weeks?!?

Worst Bus Journey in the World

Can you imagine the worst bus journey in the world??...........if you can, then you must've crossed the thailand-cambodia border too courtesy of an organised tour bus.

First border crossing for us and we really dont know how these things go, so with visa already prepared we book ourselves on some bus through one of the local travel agencys to take us over to Cambodia.

All starts well, as you're lured into a false sense of security. Luxury double decker bus sees you safely out of Bangkok after about 4 hours, each of us now wearing our obligatory blue sticker. Not so bad and as we already have our visa dont have to worry when we stop at some cafe 4 miles from the border and the nice people there are trying to tell everybody else on the bus they need to buy their visas here and not at the border. Scam?? We dont know and are glad we dont have to find out.

Here's where the fun begins...imagine a mini bus with 11 seats, squeeze 12 people into it then add their 12 rucksacks and hand luggage. Add 30 degrees of heat from the midday sun and air conditioning which doesn't extend beyond the driver's seat. Put that mini bus on a dirt track with pot holes every 30cm, for 7 hours. Sleeping is impossible; the saying now goes, "everything is possible except skiing through revolving doors and sleeping on the bus journey from the Cambodian border into Siem Reap".

Rumour has it that the airlines pay the government not to fix this particular road up so that people still fly into Siem Reap. The scam goes that the bus driver drives as slowly as he can along this road so that you arrive in town too late to leave the hostel they drop you at. This is indeed what happened. The driver didnt get above 20mph and there was people overtaking us (some on foot ;) at every pot hole! This lasted till we reached the proper road with a speed limit of 30mph (6 hours and 50 minutes down the way)...then he drove at 60mph! genius.

The first few hours were ok, watching the suburbs of Cambodia go by. Huts which look like my Dad's allotment shed line the side of the road act as people's place of work, rest and play. Tiny children roam the streets alongside anorexic cows and goats, people sleep in hammocks, kids cycle themselves and siblings on one bike to school and back, trucks with 10/20/30 people crammed in drive by. Then the darkness descends and all that is left to do is answer the question, "if you could throw any one object at the driver right now, what would it be??" Amy - a speed limit signpost, Gem = the minibus.

A man who walks sideways through airport security is always going to Bangkok!!

A couple of weeks after the event perhaps but it is getting more and more difficult to find the time to write the blogs. So much is happening and you want write it all down but we just canny find the time. Here goes though......

We flew from Hong Kong to Bangkok and after no problems got the bus to drop us at the Khao San Road aka backpackers bubblesville. Overwhelming at first - you want tuk tuk?, you want taxi?, you want hostel?, you want hotel?, you want to stay here? you want to see ping pong?? which by now we're use to but is combined with neon lights and millions of others just like us milling around in bars, restaraunts etc and its roasting. the hottest weather we've come across so far somewhere up round the mid 30's. We do one length of the Khao San Road and cant find any of the hostels we're looking for so plan B, find a bar, have a drink, then one of us stay with the bags and the other go find a hostel within a 2mins radius. Easy!!

First night we're in a room with air con think it works out at about a fiver - El Greco the Ghecko has command of the bathroom - we won't go in there if he is but the next day we're thinking we need to save a pound and move into one of the dorms???? ok, its basically a box with 2 fans and 3 mattresses on the floor but it'll do. Is saving us a pound after all?? what are we thinking :)???

Becomes pretty apparant fairly quickly you could quite easily never leave the Khao San Road and be entertained if all your looking for is food, drink and market stalls. Kinda makes you feel like your on holiday.

First day though we go off exploring and head on down to the river and head off on the little ferry boats which link all the different areas of the city. You just hop on and hop off wherever. Which area do we choose to head too - Chinatown of course, its not like we've just been there or anything. The place is heaving but good all the same.

Followed by a night out in the Irish bar. There's a Thai live band on doing covers of everything from Metallica to Bryan Adams. The place is packed and we're making friends with the locals. And think we possibly spend the pound we were saving on the room on vodka. oh well!! what can you do???

Next day - we want to do as little as possible and go looking for Lumphini Park. We reckon this should cost us about 70 baht in a taxi. The first taxi driver we ask wants 450!!!!! Do we look stupid??? (Don't answer that :) but what come on??? Get lost!!! as he trys to barter with us and follows us down the street whilst we get in the next taxi not in the habit of playing the 'lets rip off the stupid tourists' game.

Again another random park in which we find drum kit monuments (if thats even the right word), kids feeding what we think to be fish - turns out to be the biggest , ugliest catfish and turtles, people jogging and doing aerobics in over 30 degrees of heat??? and some sort of school show going on with kids playing musical instruments. oh dear!! again keeps us entertained though and we head off in look of some food and and shopping centres. excellent!!!

And then our plan was to get up early morning, to avoid the heat, and visit the Grand Palace. The early morning bit didnt happen but we're conscious we need to be a bit more covered up -our feet in particular - if we were going to visit as we dont want to offend anyone.

Half way there and we're stopped in the street by some dude telling us we cant visit the Grand Palace in flip flops and that its closed for the morning. What?!?!? He tells us to go off round the other Temples first and head back here in the afternoon. There was a bit more to it than this but in the end we listened to the man - found ourselves a tuk tuk - and for the equivalent of 50p got driven round Bangkok for the morning visiting Sitting Buddhas, Standing Buddhas and Reclining Buddhas????? oh and a random stop at some tailor who wanted to make us some clothes - we made our excuses/pretended we didnt understand :) and left.

Back to the Grand Palace again and dont know what we were worrried about - nobody else seems bothered about offending anyone. Is good to see but we dont stay too long. This place is too damn hot!!!

Only Westlife fans LIVE IN Hong Kong

Day 1 in Hong Kong...

As much of a shock as it was being dropped off in Beijing and having the world and his wife stare at you quite openly, it was as much of a shock being thrown back into an ordinary western world where you are quite invisible to everyone but the street venders who've picked you out as the type of person who cant live without a gucci handbag or a gold watch.

Breakfast! How much?!! After the initial shock of the sudden price increase we are experiencing, we decide to take a trip to the supermarket and end up with crackers, granola bars and some sort of lemon juice sqaush with added salt?! Good choice Ayms :) Next on the list of things to do is to call Mark, Amy's sister's husband's brother...a tenuous link maybe - but it's good to see a friendly face all the same.

Mark LIVES IN Hong Kong and is studying at the University there. From his oh-so excellent tour guiding skills you may have though he was studying to be a tour guide but no it's more like physics. We arranged to meet him on Hong Kong Island (involves taking a boat to Amy's delight) and have an hour to waste so we go and visit the Avenue of Stars. This would have maybe been more exciting had me and Amy recognised some of the stars aside from Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. We managed to entertain ourselves though by taking some stupid pictures. We met Mark at the boat station and head off into the City for some food which didn't look like bird food (i.e. the crackers) and happily discover the bread hasn't been flavoured with a pound of sugar!

I think Mark soon realised how unbelievably indecisive both me and Amy are...we call it easygoing :) and happily followed him around like sheep for the rest of the day, to Causeway Bay (where the shops are plentiful and oh-so tempting) and Times Square. Then we head back to the University and go on a quick tour of the campus and residencies...the day involved both Amy and me wandering around awed by the size of all the buildings and how much like home it all seemed. We went out for some chinese food and then some drinks on a crazy little street which looked more like it belonged in Spain than Hong Kong.

We arrive back at the hostel to discover we have been moved into the girls dorm and the joy of trying to keep eight girls happy with noise levels/temperature/lights off or on...who ever said girls were difficult huh?!

Day 2...

As soon as we arrive in Hong Kong we leave it to go and visit one of the surrounding islands...Cheung Chan. Mark's friend Kate joins us (we take no responsibility for the decrease in productivity of the students of Hong Kong university over the next few days ;) A trip to the supermarket to stock up on picnic treats and another boat trip and the four of us land on what we expected to be a small, quiet and picturesque little fishing village but are confronted with a Macdonalds as our first sight! Marks 'brilliant' map reading skills are put to the test and we all follow him in blind faith even after Kate's warnings about them being not as 'brilliant' as he makes out...in those moments when we had no idea where we were or where we should go we were just 'taking longer to find the place than normal' in another word - LOST!

We walk around the island, passing a really nice beach (also frequented by sharks according to the sign), many houses, a few too many hills for my liking and then somewhere to eat! Then another route back to the boat passed the dead fish market - which was disgusting. Mark left us to our own devices (=shopping) when we got back beacuse he had some "studying" (=napping) to do and then my wish was granted in the evening and we went for some mexican food...mmmm!

Day 3...

More food organised for today - Dim Sum (I think this was to make up for my lack of trying new things yesterday!) an all you can eat buffet no less...so Mark and Kate ordered just about everything off the menu, including chickens feet, which on first glance look like they could be ok until you pick one up and it really is a whole foot!...a whole chickens foot. Apparently the chinese like chewing in the skin?! Another mystery.

Since Amy loves heights the afternoon was dedicated to going up really tall buildings and the Peak. The building had a museum on the 55th floor but most people just go for the view of the city, a few snaps later and back down we go, bypassing all the interesting monetary facts the museum is there to pass on! We walked around a park, Hong Kong has a distinct lack of grassy areas and walking on the ones it does have is usually forbidden, so is sitting on walls in front of important buildings - you'd have thought we looked untidy or something!

On the way to the Peak, Mark takes us to this dessert restaurant...Amy had some red strawberry goo, Mark had some yellow mango goo and they shared this sesame goo with big lumps in it (it's a good job I'm writing this blog otherwise Amy would have called it Sago and you wouldn't of had a clue what it was, i.e. goo!) The sesame stuff was black like tar and reminded me of sesame seed buns with sausages in them with lots of ketchup cooked by Dad on Sunday mornings - so the experience wasn't all bad ;) At the promise of getting me some real dessert (ice cream) at the peak we move on!

I'd just like to point out that Mark has since told me there is a chocolate buffet restaurant which managed to escape his attention the whole time we were there...cheers dude!

The tram to the Peak was an amusing ride with Mark and me trying to distract Ayms from the height by talking about the highest building we had been in! Brilliant :) The Peak is...as well as a stunning view of the skyline, a shopping centre, a primary school and a home for some people (some rich people). We stayed there to see it in the light and dark and saw the light show - which was good but difficult to know when it had ended. And off back down we go...after the ice cream stop of course!

Our evening unexpectedly turned into a night out when we went to meet Kate and all her friends. One major plus about Hong Kong was ladies night...the ladies drink for free :) Yessss! Not such a happy story for the males of the world, but what can you do eh!? We partake in some frozen margheritas, then some cocktails and then some dancing to an excellent live band :) It's like we never left home. Apart from substitute the live band with Kit and Adam performing Nasty Girl in our living room!

Day 4...

So having seen all the sights worth seeing in Hong Kong (according to the guide of the year) we have to decide do we want to go to Disney Land or to Ocean Park Theme Park with animal attractions. I think this is the only decision Mark left us with for the whole four days and he may have soon regretted it. Finally we decide to go to Ocean Park, cheaper and it has the second longest outdoor escalator in Southeast Asia (Mark is an escalator spotter) The park is excellent fun...and it just so happens this is the hottest day we have experienced on our trip so far, Amy then experiences something a little like heat stroke we think. D'oh. We saw the sealions, the sharks, the dolphins, went on some scary rides and some not so scary ones, rode what should be called the slowest, longest outdoor escalator in Southeast Asia a lot and we visited the Panda park as well. Oh and to keep with the 'let's cure Amy's fear of heights by going on everything that's any sort of distance off the ground' we took the cable car across the park.

Back to Hong Kong and a much needed nap before heading out again for some more free drinks. Being our usual sensible selves though we left around 3am in order to get some sleep to prepare for the flight the next day! We thought we'd be safe going back to the hostel at this time of night since Pervey McPerve would probably be in bed by now (old dude who quite openly looked at porn in the communal internet room at the hostel and looked at the girls in the hostel in a simialr kindof manner...YUK!) turns out we were alone in the hostel apart from the rat which Amy saw run across the kitchen table...I still haven't figured out which was worse, Pervey McPerve or the rat?

Big thanks to Mark for taking us round Hong Kong...it was much appreciated and thanks for putting up with our indecisiveness and my particularly sensitive tastes buds ;) And to everyone else, Mark is neither a Westlife fan nor an escalator spotter (as far as I'm aware, although thinking about it, it's not something people openly admit, is it?)

A new kind of Mansion

A brief update since we are so far behind and flying through Asian countries like they are bowls of chocolate ice cream (pints of 75 cents beer if you are Amy)...we currently sit in Sihanouk Ville in Cambodia watching the anorexic cows and storm clouds pass by. We have landed here for a few days to escape city life and maybe sit on a beach for a few hours...improve the shade of pale that we already are!

So back to China! The flight was non eventful to say the least and a lot less painful than some of the journeys we had previously taken. At the aiport we found a very helpful information desk that tells us how to get to hong kong island and it all looks pretty simple. The lady even showed us where to wait for the free bus (this is where the cheapness ends in Hong Kong). Outside we find some not so helpful taxi drivers who ply us with scare tactics about how the bus isnt going to show up and how we will miss the last ferry to the island. Luckily there is a kindly Chinese gentleman who tells us to stand fast and not listen to him. In the end the bus was cutting it a bit fine but showed up and off we went to the harbour.

The ferry ride took about an hour and dropped us nowhere near where we thought we were going to be dropped (professional map readers r us)! Useful! Amy felt a little worse for wear on the boat - which was also good since that was going to be our likely form of transport for the next few days!

We arrived at 9pm and grabbed a taxi to go to Kowloon (the cheaper yet not so cheap side of town). And went in search of some hostels...these hostels are situated in what appears to be run down shopping arcades with only one lift serving 16 floors...as you can imagine, me and Ayms were flavour of the moment when we got in the lift with our rucksacks on, leaving only enough room for a small child. The first one we come to..."there's no room at the inn" so off we trot back to the lift. And then to the second place...Chungqing Mansions (imagine a mansion, scrap that and picture a 16 storey pile of bricks with some windows and dodgy characters hanging about outside)..."there's no room at the inn", dóh, it's not looking too good for us and since we suddenly decided to get lapse at booking hostels in advance in the one of the busiest city's in China, it's our own fault!

The guy mentions that he might have some beds in the stable AKA the boys dorm and we jump at the idea...cheapest rooms in Hong Kong, we are expecting to get what we pay for. It turns out to be not so bad, so we take our bags in (wake some people up in the process) and the guy Calvin, promises us the girls dorm will be available tomorrow. Sold! Then a couple in the next room say we can share in their room (they wanted some privacy me thinks but the prospect of paying less money is appealing). We go and pick our bags back up (waking those people up once again!) and settle into our new home.