Georgetown and Cameron Highlands, Malaysia

Carrying on from our last post the 18 month old baby did not stop crying untill 3am and promptly awoke at 8am to carry on her crying fit! rant most definitely over now.....

I've decided to write this blog ( Georgia), as James needs a day off haha.

We arrived in Georgetown to a very quiet guesthouse called Muntri House. We checked in and was dissapointed to see that the 'air-con' we had paid for was merely a fan unit. We don't like to complain, so just put our bags in the room, had a shower and went out for food. We walked for to find somewhere for dinner and come across a place called 'Little India' . When Malayasia was under British Rule, they employed Indian people to work in construction, they effectively were shipped from India to Georgetown. This explains the large amount of Indian immigrants in the area. They are now of course Malayasian and have their own quarter of the Town. If you looked around you, you would have thought you was in India. Indian music was played, stalls selling Indian food were everywhere and shops selling beautiful Indian clothing. We decided to of course try some Indian Cuisine. James enjoyed his, however I did not. I don't like chicken on the bone in a curry, and this just put me off!

George of the jungle

The next day we got on a local busand headed towards the National Park. Our plan was to catch a boat to Monkey Beach and then complete the 2 hour trek through the National Park back to the entrance. When we juumped off the bus, we stopped at a little restaurant and had curry again, this time it was much nicer :) . The owner made a very nice homemade curry and I was happy! Indian before a trekk was not what we wanted to eat, it was the only place open!
We got the boat to Monkey Beach, set off around 2 minutes on the path and I come across some ten monkeys in the pathway. Don't ask me why I would go to Monkey Beach when I am afraid of monkeys.... But I did! Much to James's dissapoinment I ran away like the big girl I am and refused to complete the trekk. I read reviews on tripadvisor before saying a fellow traveller was attacked by the monkeys and had to have a rabies injections. This kind of thing is rare; but I didn't want to take the chance. We got the boat back to the entrance and took the bus back to the hotel! It was a day out all in all, I just wish the Monkey Mafia wasn't waiting in a pack at the beginning!! Night time arrived and it was ladies night at the bar close to our hotel. Free drinks for girls=happy Georgia. We stayed and had some cocktails, before setting off to bed!

The next day we went on our own walking tour around the town, visited a fort, walked through the quiet streets and even saw a huge cruise ship docked into the port. Georgetown is a world hertiage site with many of the buildings being listed including our hostel which may explain the temporary thin walls between rooms and the lack of air conditioning.


After doing a bit of research, we booked a bus to the 'Cameron Highlands' which was a hill station that the British occupied to escape the heat in the lowlands. We had heard from people we met on our travels, that you can have afternoon tea in the mountains so that was a good enough reason to go. We took the bus at 11.30am and arrived around 4ish to a town that looked so pretty and temperatures of 20C! Right up out street (just what we need, abit of cold weather ;))

We booked a tour which included trekking in the jungle, visiting a tea planatation , doing some strawberry picking and a visiting butterfly farm!  We was most definitely not dissapointed. Firstly, we went into the mountains and saw 'tea-pickers' picking tea leaves and loading sacks of leaves onto tractors to be taken to the factories where the tea is made into what we know as 'tea'. At the factory we got a cup of Cameron Higlands tea and a ice cold peach tea. very nice :) even got a sausage pastry dish to go alongisde it.....

The next stop saw us go to a strawberry farm and hand pick our own strawberries! We paid around 6pounds for half a kilo... slightly pricey even by English standards but was definitely worth it. The strawberries are some of the best I've tasted!


We asked the guide not to be dropped off to the town with the others in our tour as we wanted to stop for afternoon tea and then walk but to the town we were staying in via the forest. We had afternoon tea at "Ye Olde Smokehouse Hotel" and had  some fresh scones, shortbread and tea! It was beautiful and we felt very British. The surroundings were outside in the forest, opposite a golf course and the decor inside what like a old English country House! One for the historians such as myself :)  We finished our scones and strawberries and took 'Trail 4' back to our hotel. The signposts estimated the walk in the forest to be around an hour or so. Me and James done it in 45minutes, because we are pro's ;)

In the 1960s there was only 2,000 people living in the cameron islands and he was one of them! Today there are over 45,000 people. The guide was understably worried about the envirnoment and conservation for the area. He said so much of the jungle is being torn down, and predicts that almost half of it will go in the future. Very sad and definitely something to think about!

We have a bus booked to  Kuala Lumpur tomorrow at 8.00am to continue our next adventure. The Cameron Highlands have been one of the best places we have visited so far (for me at least) .


p.s James broke his phone, not only is the screen smashed, the touch screen doesn't work either.


untill next time......

Koh Samui, Krabi and our "journey" to the border

Under normal circumstances I would be writing a blog in an internet cafe in the middle of the afternoon when it's too hot to be walking about but tonight is an exception. It's 2AM and I have gave up trying to sleep as we are staying in a hotel with paper thin walls (and ceilings) and there is a 18-month old baby next door either running around or crying which her parents don't care about. The walls are literally cardboard, plus the room says it comes with air conditioning which is not really the case. We have been provided with a portable air-conditioning unit that pumps out my hot air out the back of it than the cold air out the front.....I don't know how this hotel has an 8.2 out of 10 rating online, I will be the one responsible to make that rating go down. Rant over!

After leaving Koh Tao, we headed to Koh Samui which is the largest of the Thai islands that we have visited but we had a couple of days free before my parents arrived. We booked into a nice room on the North of the island in the middle of nowhere, but it was cheap and we didn't mind because it had a pool and a restaurant and was in the countryside. It turned out that one of the owners was from Birmingham and there may have been a Thai bride involved somewhere along the line. The hotel was nice but the man who either ran or owned the hotel had the intelligence and social skills of an ogre(couldn't think of a better word) but to be fair wasn't unfriendly. We wasn't there for the service or location, just a nice big air-conditioned room with a swimming pool that we can lay around and detox for a couple of days after enduring the previous 2 weeks of staying in fan rooms and drinking too much beer! 

The 4th April arrived and my Mum and Dad had booked me and Georgia into a nice 4-star hotel on the beach with them which we were looking forward to.....and obviously seeing my parents for the first time in 11 weeks! We checked into reception and was told our room was next door to reception which wasn't too much of a problem, just meant we had a better Wi-fi signal lol. We met my Mum and Dad on the hotel beach and spent the day catching up and having a bit of lunch.

Beach hunk

Over the next few days we seemed to have breakfast as late as possible as it was included with our room until 11AM and was served in these individual wooden bungalows scattered along the front of the hotel on the beach and the breakfast was a 3 course meal! Having breakfast on the beach was the best thing about the hotel. After laying around the beach or pool we would then go out for dinner and have a few drinks and buckets, the drinks sometimes come in actual buckets that you would find on the beach and were usually better value than getting a glass. We were staying on Chaweng beach and was completely different to anywhere else on our travels, it was so developed you could mistake it for being somewhere in Europe. You knew it wasn't Europe because of all the ladyboy shows that were advertised and the endless amount of Thai girls known as Go-Go girls hanging around the bars, although there was a Russian strip club! Don't worry my  Mum put one of the girls in their place after talking to my Dad haha. The resort was just one-long road around 4 miles long so it was impossible to walk down all of it unless you jumped in a taxi or on the back of a pick-up truck.

Me and Georgia decided to rent a moped out for the day to explore the island but I stupidly decided to go through the mountain roads and not stick to the flat wide roads. As a result, our small moped was not powerful to make it up the hill so we had to turn back which was annoying but the worse was yet to come. On the way down the steep hills, the front brake broke leaving me with only the back brake coming down the steep hills. In the end I had to use my feet to stop and my flip-flops are now literally burnt out!

We all visited an "Ice Bar" one night and were given coats, hats and gloves to try and keep us warm from the freezing temperature. The "glasses" were made out of ice and there was even a tuk-tuk made from ice which was impressive. We was only in there for 30 minutes but was worth it as I have always seen it advertised in London but for some reason have never been. We also went to a night market which takes place once a week when the road is shut off and stalls open from early evening into the night with stalls selling everything from Buddha's to Spring Rolls! It was so hot as the steam and smoke was coming from the food stalls and was so busy it became impossible to walk down the market. After my Mum bought a few souvenirs including a couple of Buddhas we jumped back in the taxi back to our resort. The next night we headed to a lady-boy show, a little bit similar to the one we previously saw on Koh Tao but it was a bit more professional which almost took the fun out of it because the show we saw before was quite amateur-ish and was part of the fun.

Six nights later we parted ways with my Mum and Dad and we jumped on a boat back to the mainland whilst they got on a plane back to Bangkok for their flight back to London the following morning! Seven hours later we ended up in Krabi which is probably one of the least touristy places we have been to, its more of a stop-over to get to the other islands in Thailand rather than people visiting Krabi itself. After finding a travel agent and booking a bus to Malaysia we realized we had 7 pound between us to last 2 nights so we made it last until we got to Malaysia to withdraw their currency. We just ate toasties out of 7/11 which is the equivalent to a Tesco Express and had some street food for dinner at the local market which included a fake KFC stall and a stall selling hot-dogs wrapped in pancake? By the end of it we had 1 baht left (2p) and felt a sense of achievement and planned on stuffing our faces the next day on hopefully a something bit more Western.
 

We were picked up the next morning at 06:30 to go to Malaysia but we found out this would involve switching mini-buses in the main city in the South of Thailand just before the border. When getting dropped off by the first minivan we were told by the young Thai lady at the travel agent that the next minivan to Malaysia is not due to arrive for another 90 minutes and we should head into the centre and grab some food! We left our bags at the travel agent and went in search for food but on the way we noticed so many people on the street with water guns.....it was Thai New Year which is known as Songkram.  As a way of celebrating the new year,the Thai tradition originally started by people throwing water over each other as a blessing and a sign of good luck for the new year but has slowly become an excuse for one huge water fight. We found out this out as the locals would threw buckets of water over us, and squirted us using huge water guns. We had to either run or just stand there and get drenched as we wasn't prepared and had no ammunition to fight back.  After being soaked by kids, adults and the elderly lol, our eyes lit up as we saw a McDonald's sign and we ran to cover and tried to dry-out whilst eating chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers. We knew that we were only one block away from the travel agent to get onto the next bus and had 20 minutes to do so which wasn't really the issue, it was trying to dodge the locals and keep dry! We failed miserably. A passing truck with ten people on the back squirted me with water pistols and as I tried to run my flip flop gave way and snapped which gave them more time to soak me until the traffic lights turned green. We made it back to the travel agent wet but we didn't mind because it was so hot and everyone was having a city-wide water fight and all in a good nature with people having a laugh. Our minivan arrived on-time thankfully as we made our escape from the water fight headed to Malaysia for refuge.......

Stats so far................

Stats

Days been away: 81 days

Distance travelled: 15,000 miles (approx.)

Countries Visited: 5 (India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam)

Hotels visited: 35

Bus: 15 Times
Boat: 6 Times
Plane: 5 Times
Train: 3 Times
Overnight Journeys: 7 Times
Longest Journey: 20 hours
 

Thai Islands (Koh Tao and Koh Phangan)

My last blog was very rushed and apparently did not make much sense according to my Dad so I am going to take my time over this blog! To be fair it was rushed because we had to catch a bus and a ferry from Bangkok to the Thai Islands in the South.

Our  journey to Koh Phangan left Bangkok at 6pm and was due to arrive the next day at 10:30am. If we were in England and we arrived half hour late, we wouldn't be too happy. But this is Thailand, if the travel agent says a guaranteed arrival time, you need to add at least 2 hours more onto the journey. We arrived at the island at 1:30pm tired and sweaty after having to endure 2 twilight films on the bus. 

When we checked into our bungalow in our "resort" we had very low expectations but when we entered the room there were cobwebs, dust and spiders everywhere and seemed unused in the past year we wasn't best pleased so we were upgraded to a decent room for a few hours whilst the owner cleaned it. I also made the mistake of trying to convince Georgia that we wouldn't need air conditioning because there would be more of a breeze on the islands compared to Bangkok. Our room had a tin roof so during the day it would heat up and the majority of the time the room was hotter than outside despite the best efforts of a 20 year old fan stuck on the wall! The location of the bungalow was
a 1 minute walk from a quiet beach so it wasn't all bad. The beach was one of the best I have been to mainly due to the fact that there was nobody about, no bars, no sun loungers and the sea was the temperature of a warm bath back home. We even claimed a sandbank at low tide and called it Georgia island, it's the nearest she is going to ever get to owning an island! The island as a whole was developed, but the majority of accommodation was bungalows rather than big hotels and big resorts which makes the island a lot more prettier.

We had a few quiet nights in the bungalow drinking beer and playing cards on our balcony, and eating out at a couple of restaurants. Georgia noticed a sign advertising an unlimited BBQ for only 3 pound which sounded too good to be true, especially as the Thai islands so far is the most expensive place we have visited, although still much cheaper than Spain or Greece. The staff placed a metal bowl on our table, full of boiling water in which you placed the raw meat onto a small plate that was surrounded by the boiling water. Its quite hard to explain, basically it wasn't your typical English BBQ, and I turned into an unconvincing chef that evening trying to cook. Georgia spent a lot of the time in the toilet the next day lol.

After a few days budgeting, relaxing, sweating and exploring the island on a moped, full moon arrived on the island! Full moon on Koh Phangan is an excuse for tens of thousands of people to have a beach party all night and is one of the must things to do! We had arranged to meet up with a few people including Matt and Louise who we first met tubing in Vang Vieng, and Kelly and Laura who we met in Luang Prabang, with Rob flying all the way in from London via Bangkok!
For the "full moon" party we each bought a neon coloured vest-top along with some paints for face paint and random patterns over our arms, although Matt invented his own technique in splattering paint over everyone including the balcony and on the windows! The night started out drinking a combination of Vodka and beer on the balcony playing a few card and drinking games to get the night going and we ended up jumping in a shared taxi down to Haad Rin Beach where the party was. The full moon party was a surreal place, there was a dozen or so beachfront bars blaring out mainly techno music with little independent stalls/carts selling alcohol buckets. It was also weird that we were outside and not inside a packed nightclub. Men and even some women in the sea using it as a toilet whilst there would be people scattered across the beach who were passed out or decided to have a nap! There was also a water slide for people who were drunk enough to brave it, as a good friend we encouraged Rob to have a go and be the Guinea pig. It was a slide about 15 feet high with water running down it with a landing mat at the bottom and it seemed pretty fun looking at the other people having a go, but Rob made a complete meal of it. Instead of sliding down the water slide, he bumped his way down uncomfortably overshooting the landing pad, crashing onto the beach whilst breaking him bum and banging his head on the floor whilst his glasses were falling off, he was in a confused state when he finally got up lol.......it put the rest of us off from having a try! After a few more drinks we slowly was drinking less alcohol and more water (and vegetables) , trying our best to make sunrise at about 6ish but made it to around 5:30am.
That night me and Georgia was letting Rob, Laura and Kelly use our room for the night, but we lost the girls fairly early in the night but we knew there boat back to the mainland was in the morning so they wouldn't be far behind us getting back to the room! The girls turned up at lunchtime looking a bit rough, missed their boat and somehow Kelly's eyebrows were peeling from sunburn, was one of the funniest things I have seen in the past few months.....sorry Kelly lol. Judging by the picture Rob enjoyed his sleep though....
We wasn't in no mood to drink the day after the party and was looking for something to do that didn't involve alcohol. A few days earlier when me and Georgia was exploring the island on our little moped we discovered a Wipeout course. There is a game show  on BBC1 called Total Wipeout when random people or z-list celebrities undertake a water assault course and try to complete it in the shortest time possible. In the past I have always been the first to say that it is one of the worst game shows that has been created but I still couldn't resist giving it a go! Georgia sat around in the shade whilst me and Rob gave the course a go to realise how unfit we are!
That evening we ate at the Mason's Arms which was an English styled Tudor pub in the middle of the island serving English dishes that we have been craving including Pie n Mash, Fish and Chips, roast dinners! I don't think Rob appreciated as much as me and Georgia did because he had only left home a couple of days before. We had an early night in an upgraded air-conditioned version of my shed back home, ready for the boat to Koh Tao the next day....

Koh Tao is a tiny island a couple of hours North of Koh Phangan and only really consisted of one resort on the island and several bays located around the island. We docked into the pier, which looked like it was built in a day and was in danger of collapsing but we made it to the shore and found a taxi to the hotel. The taxis on the islands are not your typical black cab or minicab you would find back in England. They are pick-up trucks with benches at the back with the drivers try their best to cram as many people into one vehicle to earn as much as they can. We arrived at our hot stuffy room in the afternoon and chilled in the shade until the evening when we went out for a meal and for a few drinks. We were staying in the main and only resort but it was tiny, maybe 2/3 streets of shops, bars and restaurants but had a cozy feel to it I suppose. We found a beach bar with good music that was open to the early morning.
The other days consisted of driving around the island on a rented moped which was good but was the most stressful experiences since the beginning of travelling (including India!) when the owner was trying to charge us for small scratches that was there before we rented it out. Admittedly, Rob did scratch a small plastic cover but nothing too major and she wanted 70 pound for it whilst they also tried to charge me the same amount for a scratch on the mud flap! After negotiating for hours I ended up paying 25 quid for a scratch on a mudflap and Rob had to pay the full 70! I had revenge in mind and I thought if we paid more or less 100 pound between us in supposed damages on the mopeds, we were going to get our moneys worth and smash a couple of mirrors on the bikes the next day haha. When me and Rob was walking to the beach the next day, we passed the rental place and it had disappeared . The shop was shut, no mopeds in sight, the roof protecting the mopeds was gone and nothing remained. We had read reviews about dodgy rental companies on the island charging people for non-existent damages to bikes with tourists having no power to negotiate because they kept our passports has a deposit for the bikes, which was a stupid thing to do in hindsight!
Apart from that incident, Koh Tao is a beautiful and picturesque island that was only a few miles long, lots of palm trees and not too developed unlike the other islands. It is a shame that I am not a keen swimmer as it was the 2nd most popular diving site in the world as the water is so clear and warm.
We played mini-golf and bowling a couple of nights in which you may think is not worth a mention but the bowling was an experience. It was "Flintstone bowling" and consisted of a bowling lane made out of wood, there was no machinery involved and we had to re-set the pins manually every time we knocked them over. We also had to push the ball back down the aisle and considering we were playing in 40 degree heat, it was hard work! It was an experience but I think next time we will pay the staff to manually reset the pins for only 50p more! I spent my birthday on Koh Tao and went out for a nice Indian but feels as if I missed out on my birthday but I can't hardly complain being in sunshine on a Thai island!
It was time for us and Rob to part ways after a week together which was EMOTIONAL, Rob headed back to the heat of Bangkok and we headed to Koh Samui for a week to meet with my Mum and Dad. I am currently staying in a nice hotel with air-conditioning, a mini-bar, a swimming pool, soft beds which is complete luxury compared to what we are used to! Until next time.......

Bangkok

Hi, quick update....we are just waiting for our bus so thought we could do a quick blog on Bangkok!

We arrived by plane into Bangkok which was luxury as we have been used to hot old buses for the past couple of months. At the airport we were quoted a stupid amount for a taxi from the airport (18 pound), it may not sound like a lot, but that's two nights accommodation for both of us in some places we have visited! We ended up taking the train from the airport to the centre for 10 pence each which was even cheap by Thai standards. It was delayed by half hour and was so hot and humid and was hard to even justify paying 10p for the journey. Before we got to Bangkok central station, we was held at a red signal so we literally jumped off the train with our bags and caught a cab to Khao San Road!

The last time we were in Bangkok, we ended up avoiding the ping pong show but after speaking to people on our travels, we felt it would be silly if we would miss out on the experience....and it was an experience! We read so many bad reviews online about people getting scammed so we was wary, but still managed to get dragged into a place up a dark set of stairs to find out we were the first people in so it was a bit awkward as this girl was performing just for us! Thankfully other people turned up and we ended up watching acts involving blowing out candles, smoking cigarettes, popping balloons and playing pin pong with balls flying everywhere....inbox me for more details! I went to the toilet and come out to find Georgia violently and competitively smashing ping pong balls back at the women which was a shock to the system, think she didn't quite realize what she was doing! When we tried to leave they was trying to charge us 45 pound instead of 5 pound with about 4 people shouting us standing by the door, I ended up arguing and they just let us go, probably scared we was scaring the other customers! It put a bit of a dampener on the night but was worth visiting the show but I wouldn't think twice about going back! We couldn't take pictures in there otherwise they would have been on Facebook by now....

The last time we was in Bangkok, we arrived from India with a bit of a Delhi belly so we avoided alcohol and street food and stayed in a nice hotel until we got better. This time we done it the backpacker's way by staying in cheap but nice accommodation and trying the local food including noodles, fried rice, spring rolls and a nice chicken kebab which works out a lot cheaper than eating in restaurants all the time! Bangkok is so much hotter compared to a few weeks ago, the humidity is unbearable and the temperature reaches 40C everyday during March/April. We would often end up going out in the morning, hibernating in our air conditioned room in the afternoon and then going back out during the evening!

That's it for now because we need to jump on our 12 hour bus and 3 hour ferry which will probably somehow mean 20 hours in total in Thailand. We are looking forward to spending a few days on the island including the full moon party where we will meet up with a few people on our travels plus a handsome boy from Benfleet (ego boost).

James and Georgia xx

Cambodia

I've been fortunate enough to skive out of writing too many blogs, therefore its well over due that it is my turn to write a new blog for you all!

We arrived in Cambodia after day journey from Vietnam. The first part of the journey was comfortable , a excellent bus with air -con and all modern features. We were not so lucky during the second bus, it broke down and we was waiting for over an hour for it too fix. In the middle of the day, in the middle of the heat this is not something we was too happy about! Nevertheless we made it to our first destination in Cambodia Siam Reap.
We arrived in the evening, checked into our hotel, got some food and went to bed early so we could visit Angkor Wat the next morning :)
The next morning we rented a tuk-tuk to take us around to the 'best'four temples. The size of them was absolutely hugeeeee. James particularly enjoyed visiting the temple where 'Tomb Raider' starring Angelina Jolie was filmed. I on the other hand am 'Team Aniston' - therefore it was not that impressive ;) . It was fascinating to see one of the wonders of the world. It was a bit of a shame that due to the Cambodian civil war, some of the remains were left vandalised, however very impressive nonetheless!

After a long day we decided to head back to the hotel, catch some sleep and head to 'pub street' in the night. Pub street is basically what it says on the tin! Streets with pubs... a place where alcohol is cheaper than water, like a lot of South-East Asia it is far too tempting to give the alcohol a miss haha! We enjoyed a night looking around the night market and enjoying a few beverages or two!
There is not much else to do/see in Siem Reap other than the impressive temples, therefore we booked a bus to the next Town in Cambodia: Sihanoukville. We got the bus booked for 11.30pm , to save time by travelling through the night. As we had such a long wait, we decided to go the the war Museum for a few hours. We had a tour guide who had been a child soldier in the Cambodian civil war , forced to kill, and forced to watch all his family die. He was a very sad man, with a very interesting story. Although he seemed stern at the time, me and James felt like we was back at school when he was asking us questions that we did not know! He educated us to some extent on the war ,he was visibly moved by telling us his story. We felt very fortunate to be able to meet and hear his voice.
That night we bought a book for the journey to understand the war a little more. Our night bus came and we had a group of the most rudest people, I have ever come across, sitting just behind us. Loud, obnoxious and well just plain rude. I was glad when they knocked themselves out to sleep by taking Valium!
The journey was split into two buses, we had to get off at 6am and wait two hours for our next bus to arrive,which wasn't ideal, but standard for SE Asia! You can't complain too much, everyone is in the same boat!

We got to Sihanoukville during the after noon, found a reasonably cheap hotel to stay for the night. When arriving in the town, we did not expect it to be a ''party town'. Bars were everywhere and it soon became clear that this was not going to be an early night for either of us :) We went out to a bar, and in the bar stood a couple who we had met early on our travels in India! We all went out for the night and booked to go on the 'booze cruise'the following afternoon!
We went on the 'booze cruise'with the couple we had met in India and the friends that had met. All were very lovely and we all had a fun time on the boat! The weather was just right, not too hot! All in all it was a good day and we even got dinner at the end of it. Perfect after drinking for some several hours! :)
The next day was our anniversary! March 13th 2009- the day James came into my life and ruined it haha. Only joking. We decided to treat ourselves to a hotel with a pool and for dinner a bbq for 3 dollars! Very cheap and cheerful lol. We ended up renting a cinema room for a couple of hours and watching a film for only 4 dollars each! We watched 'life at 40' , a half decent film that made me laugh! We bought some pringles, cola bottles and spent the night at the cinema!
The next day, we stayed at the hotel and met a few people around the pool. We all went out for dinner & a few drinks in the evening. I feel like we have been so fortunate to meet the people we have whilst travelling. All have been welcoming and nice to us! Our final day was spent at the beach, we got a tuk tuk to it,It was a secluded beach and was very nice! There isn't much to see/do in Sihanoukville , we stayed for 5 nights, just eating and having fun! However it was time to leave and head to our final stop in Cambodia Phnom Penh!

We only had enough time to stay in Phnom Penh for just two nights, as we have a flight booked for Bangkok in the morning! (Can;t wait to head to all the beautiful Thai Islands)

Everyone comes to Phnom Penh to visit the killing fields and the war prison s-21. We have just come back from a all day visit to see both attractions '. S-21 was a old high school converted into a prison where they kept humans in such poor conditions and often beating and starving them to death. Out of some few thousands only 7 survived the harsh conditions. As the war only ended in the late 70s, you can still see blood stains from victims. You can walk around their cells and see the torture instruments they use to use on them to kill them. Human remains are still present at the site. It was a very moving place to visit. How anyone can inflict such misery on other humans is beyond me. Such a sad place to visit, yet a poignant memory to those who tragically lost their lives. The next stop was visiting the killing fields, this is the place the Cambodians use to take 'traitors'' too, to ultimately die. Anyone who was educated, a lawyer, teacher, soft hands, wore glasses and the disabled were instantly killed without a second thought. Those who had degrees, who had studied medicine were seen as a threat to the ÁNGKOR and were tortured to death. Many lied and said they were poor to avoid death, however almost a third of the entire population was murdered by their own government. Cambodians killing Cambodians, makes no sense at all too me! You take an audio tour around the killing fields , you see mass graves'; where the victims were killed then all hurdled together in a pit to rot to death. One thing that stood out to me was the 'killing tree' - a tree where they would hold a baby by his/her feet and whack them against it until they died. Absolutely horrific. No words can explain nor do these two places justice. It is something that you have to visit to comprehend yourself. Because the war is so recent, you can see bones lying on the ground with teeth coming out the mass graves. So sad to see, yet so interesting! Anyone wishing to visit Cambodia , should and must see this to understand the history, struggle and pain of the Cambodian people!

We are heading to back Bangkok tomorrow morning and have a flight booked for 8.45am. We are both looking forward to heading to the Thai islands for the 'full moon party' .
Cambodia has been a very special place to visit/see , however we are both looking forward to our next adventure!


Georgia and James
xxxx

Vietnam so far....

Sorry we haven't wrote a blog in a while, we have seemed to be getting a dodgy wi-fi connection everywhere we have been. We have spent over 2 weeks in Vietnam and our time here is come to an end where we are now off to Cambodia

Bus journey from Laos to Vietnam
We wasn't too optimistic about getting on a bus for 18 hours on what they claimed was a sleeping bus, the definition of a sleeping bus in Vietnam seems to be a reclining seat for people who are under 5 foot. My legs were squashed and I had the top bunk so it seemed as if I could fall out at any moment! The journey was terrible, had to endure the Vietnamese equivalent of X factor on repeat 3-4 times, we had locals sleeping in the aisles and the bus stopped every hour to unload cargo from the bus roof! We couldn't complain too much seeing as we paid ten pound for the whole journey. Was either that or paying 170 each for a flight! As we were being proper backpackers and avoiding flights, we had to cross the land border between Laos and Vietnam, the bus stops a mile from the border, and effectively have to exit Laos and walk another half mile to enter through the Vietnamese border whilst bribing officials to check and stamp your passports. I am not ever moaning about waiting at passport control at Gatwick airport for 20 minutes ever again! Once we crossed the border we headed to our first stop, Hue in Vietnam.

Vietnamese border after a 2km walk

Hue
We arrived at 12 after getting chucked off the bus(literally) and checked-in to our hotel and was starving after a diet of crisps and Oreo's for the past 24 hours. There was a family owned cafe next door and a meal cost around a pound, so we got 2 meals each! Got to take advantage, was almost like being in Tesco thinking its on offer, so might aswell.
The next day when we went on a city tour which wasn't a city tour, it was going down a river for about 4 hours stopping at various sites such as tombs and temples. To be fair it was pretty impressive, was just a long day. One of the stops was the Emperor's tomb, the area must have been the size of Alton Towers with lakes and forests with various smaller tombs and old buildings. Its quite hard to describe to be honest, saying "old buildings" doesn't do it justice. The next day we actually did do a city tour which was a preserved city, where the Mandarin family lived, although a lot of the buildings were destroyed in the American-Vietnam war but was still a good day out.
One of the best things about this place that we enjoyed was the weather! It was cloudy and cool, was almost like a rubbish summer day in England, it was nice not to be sweating all the time after over a month in severe humidity.
There were a few bars we took advantage of during our last night and met a nice couple who hopefully we bump into later on in our travels!
Our next stop was Hoi An, a $3, 4 hour train journey through the mountains and along the coast.

Hoi An

Arrived in Hoi An and checked-in to our hotel/hostel which included a swimming pool which instantly meant luxury by our standards lol. After a long day and a week without Indian food, we went on a mission to find an Indian restaurant. We must have been hungry when the waitress even suggested we might be ordering too much food! Never had that before.

Train journey through the rainy hills

There was a nice beach in Hoi An, and we are not big beach lovers but it was nice to be by a beach sunbathing feeling like we was on holiday rather than travelling. At this point we counted that we stayed in 20 hotels in 36 days! Too much packing and unpacking for my liking.
That night we met up with the couple we met in Hue and went for dinner and went for a couple of drinks, including a new bar which looked like someones living room with a pool table inside called "good and cheap" bar, Georgia had the habit of calling it "cheap and easy bar", maybe she may of been thinking of someone particular? The bars in Laos and Vietnam had to be closed by midnight but as this bar was fairly new and looked like someones house it stayed open until everyone left, we got back to our room at 4.15 am and suffered the next day. It was a good night out but I broke the camera playing pool so it put a bit of a dampener on the night. We ended up renting a bicycle out, which was an extreme sport for Georgia has she hasn't been on a bike since she was ten lol.
We booked a overnight train up to Nha Trang for the next day but they had only hard sleeper bunks left and no bottom bunks left but we didn't have much of a choice really. It was a triple bunk bed and I had the top bunk which was more like a coffin. The train pulled up at 8am the next day.


Nha Trang

On the way back from Vinpearl looking extremely happy 

We arrived at the station nice and early and didn't have a room booked but found a room for $10 and was one of the nicest rooms we have had. We decided to head to a theme/water park on an island just off the coast. The only way to get there was by boat or taking the world's longest cable car. To get there and for entrance was only about 14 pound but was well worth it as it had one of the best water parks I have been to and included an aquarium and a theme park! Was a good day out. Although I smashed my big toe up on some rocks and am now scarred for life.

Georgia getting fishy

Nha Trang was a lot different to the other places we had visited, it was more like a holiday resort, most of the tourists were Russians. From our holidays in Turkey and Egypt we have not got on well with Russians and their rude culture so we tried to avoid them as best we could. There was benefits of being in a big resort, mainly the fact they played football everywhere and even had Sunday Roast dinner which I was overly excited about. After having rice for 2 months it was nice to have a roast although it was never going to taste like an English roast and it didn't have Yorkshire puddings, but for 1.60 I couldn't complain too much! We stayed in Nha Trang for 4 nights in 3 different hotels which was a big regret and a lot of hassle! Nha trang was good but felt more like a holiday resort rather than a backpacking destination.

Mui Ne


We decided at the last minute to not head directly to Ho Chi Minh and split up the journey and head to Mui Ne, where we was told there was good excursions

Georgia doing her best not to get her dress wet

Crocodile on a skewer

on the sand dunes. We found accommodation  for only 20 dollars a night we stayed in a small resort with a nice swimming pool. We headed out for dinner but there was just seafood restaurants selling everything from salmon to crocodile. As we had only 24 hours in Mui Ne, we decided to take a jeep to the sand dunes for sunrise. When we arrived in darkness at 5.15am they asked if we wanted a quad bike to go on the dunes. That was a mistake. After 15 minutes our quad bike burst into flames. It was meant to be a nice relaxing view of the sunrise on the sand dunes, there was even weddings and photo shoots taking place right next to us and our banger of a quad bike goes up in flames, so we run away and left the quad bike to burn. We demanded to get out money back but we wasn't getting nowhere and got only a bit of money back. It was far from relaxing! We then tried to get conned by some 10 year old kid and then started swearing at us when we gave him a tip when he wanted a much a larger tip. All this before 8am, it was a morning to forget! Luckily we headed back to our hotel and relaxed around the swimming pool to recover from our ordeal and jumped on the bus to Ho Chi Minh at lunchtime.




Ho Chi Minh City

We stayed in Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon for 3 nights and enjoyed every minute of it as we ended Vietnam on a high. On the way to the city me and Georgia decided that we would have a week off drinking after constantly having beer almost everyday for the past 2 months but that went "tits up" as soon as we got off the bus and noticed that water was the same price as beer. We booked up an excursion with our hotel to go to see the tunnels that were built by the Vietnamese during the war with America in the 1970's. The exhibition was a few hours away from the city and although the tunnels were not the original tunnels used during the war, it was a good insight into how small and hot the tunnels would have been. There was a part where you it was only possible to pass through the tunnel by crawling! That bit we wasn't a fan of so we kept to the parts you could stand up in. We learnt about landmines and the different traps created by soldiers  women and children to capture American soldiers  I also had the opportunity to have a few shots on a machine gun at the shooting range for a pound a bullet, lets just say the gun almost knocked me off my feet. We also visited a religious ceremony which was attended by members of the 4 main religions in Vietnam which was a good experience. It was an educational experience compared to previous days where we had been by the beach or having a drink.

Religous ceremony

The following day we done our standard "Best things to do in....." on Google and found out about a viewing deck on the 50th floor of the world trade centre for 10 pound. This is where research pays off; we found out that there was a bar on the 52nd floor with free entry and happy hours during the evening. We guessed this wouldn't be your typical backpackers bar and could turn up in a vest top and flip-flops so I wore my only smart shirt and headed to the World Trade Centre. The view from the bar was amazing with the sun setting as we saw the city in the day and at night and had a couple of beers to enjoy the view! We had 2 beers each and overall it come to 14 pound which was a bargain considering it was 10 pound each and 2 floors BELOW to go to the viewing observation deck.....we got paid to drink beer.

52nd Floor of the Vietnamese World Trade Centre

The next couple of days we explored the city, nearly got killed by one of the 5 millions motorbikes in the city and had a nice dinner in a street market restaurant. Our next stop is Cambodia where we look forward to exploring a country we know little about!