The girls enjoyed the 6 hour bus ride to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, full of locals and quite comfortable. Unfortunately when they arrived at the lake where they wanted to stay the only room that could be found was one that smelled of wee due to the ‘bathroom’ in the corner of the room which only had walls about ¾ of the way up and didn’t have a lid on the toilet seat! To help us all sleep in this disgusting room we went out and enjoyed some beverages with some pretty dull young guys from Oz!
As soon as we opened our eyes the next day we went straight out to find a more suitable vacant room around the corner – although pretty expensive in comparison the aircon, hot water and tv were worth it!!
Once we all moved all of our stuff Kathryn chilled out and enjoyed a long hot shower whilst Zoe went to Tuol Sleung Museum (S21 Prison) which was another very harsh visual record of a country at war. On the back of a small moped Kathryn and Zoe (and the driver) went to the killing fields about a half hour drive away – not the most comfortable mode of transport! This was a camp where Cambodians were taken under the regime of Pol Pot to be executed, usually for reasons like wearing glasses or being able to read. In the centre of the excavated fields there is now a temple which has been built to house the skulls of all of the thousands of Cambodians who were murdered here.
Excited about meeting up with Zoe’s friend Kieran and his girlfriend Holly who live in Cambodia the girls got their glad rags on and along with Pat squeezed back onto the moped to go and meet them. Whilst waiting for Holly, Kieran took the opportunity to tune Pat the guitar, have a play and even show Zoe some chords!
Kieran is volunteering for an organisation in Cambodia who work with local people who need a loan to help them improve their life – they have a website (http://www.kiva.org/) where they post all of the applicants from all over the world with what they will use the money for e.g. to buy a cow and anyone can loan them the money which they will repay over the course of 1 year plus - the minimum amount you can loan people is $25 and they only have around 2% of people unable to make the repayments – a great idea if anyone wants to support a great cause!!
(back to what we did with Kieran and Holly)
The night out with the ‘locals’ was great as they took us all to the best places; a market, some good bars and Cambodian night clubs where we could let our hair down and bust some moves! Unfortunately Holly was poorly and having fed the fish ;) made an early exit so the rest of us partied the night away and the girls had the latest night since leaving the UK!
The next day we had to get up early to get a very cheap local bus to Siem Reap – luckily the bus was empty (except for about 4 travellers, 4 locals and a monk) so we could spread out for the long and extremely bumpy road across Cambodia!
We could tell what a fantastic place Siem Reap was as soon as we arrived! Just the right mix of busy, quiet, modern, old, culture and fun! We found ourselves a lovely place to stay right in the centre of town and went straight out to dinner to meet Sophie who we’d met on the bus at the ‘Dead Fish Restaurant’ which was amazing – the whole restaurant was a mish mash of different level platforms, most with chilled out seating on the floor and traditional Thai dancers on a platform in the middle of the restaurant. The food was great and the atmosphere was brilliant – even though we knew the whole time that in the basement was lurking at least 20 crocodiles that have been there since the restaurant was previously a crocodile farm!!
The next day we went to see one of the 8 wonders of the world – Angkor Wat; a collection/city of ancient temples built a very long time ago!! They were amazing! Our driver took us around the main ones and we got to explore these loads – Zoe and Kathryn both agreed their favourite was Tar Prom which had trees growing from within the walls and ceilings – it is the only temple that they have not done any reconstruction to and they have just let nature take it’s course – also featured in the film Tomb Raider this temple definitely had an action movie feel to it! Zoe and Kathryn might have had a few Lara Croft moments inside!!
After looking at the temples we asked our driver to take us to see some monkeys – they have monkeys living wild within the grounds and you often see then along some of the roads. Soon enough we had spotted 4 monkeys on the side of the road and our tuk tuk stopped so we could take some photos! So excited by this Kathryn jumped straight out and started crossing the road to get closer – the monkeys however had another idea – they started running across the road towards Zoe and jumped straight into the tuk tuk to join her! To say Zoe was petrified at this point would probably not even come close!!! The monkeys proceeded to sit next to Zoe and ‘play’ with her for a while during which time our tuk tuk driver offered Zoe some comforting words ‘I’m scared’!!! after a while we realised the monkeys wouldn’t actually hurt us and when they let go of Zoe she jumped out of the tuk tuk to let Kathryn have a go – by then they weren’t interested in any of us as they were being fed some bananas by a passer by!
A perfect end to the day – we all tucked up in bed for the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy on Star Movies!
The next day was an early start (well not as early as it was meant to be as Kathryn set the alarm for 6pm instead of 6am which meant when we woke up at 6.53am we only had 22mins to pack our bags and get ready to leave!) as we travelled on the long and bumpy road to Bangkok, due to Thai Airways stopping the road to the Thai border being resurfaced to encourage people to fly. We had a 5 hour bus trip to the border along a road FULL of pot holes – good job Kathryn can sleep anywhere! After crossing the Thai border and bringing some joy to some street kids with Pat the guitar we all carried on our long journey to Bangkok...
Speak soon, and remember...2 brushes a day keeps the dentist away!!
Keith xx
As soon as we opened our eyes the next day we went straight out to find a more suitable vacant room around the corner – although pretty expensive in comparison the aircon, hot water and tv were worth it!!
Once we all moved all of our stuff Kathryn chilled out and enjoyed a long hot shower whilst Zoe went to Tuol Sleung Museum (S21 Prison) which was another very harsh visual record of a country at war. On the back of a small moped Kathryn and Zoe (and the driver) went to the killing fields about a half hour drive away – not the most comfortable mode of transport! This was a camp where Cambodians were taken under the regime of Pol Pot to be executed, usually for reasons like wearing glasses or being able to read. In the centre of the excavated fields there is now a temple which has been built to house the skulls of all of the thousands of Cambodians who were murdered here.
Excited about meeting up with Zoe’s friend Kieran and his girlfriend Holly who live in Cambodia the girls got their glad rags on and along with Pat squeezed back onto the moped to go and meet them. Whilst waiting for Holly, Kieran took the opportunity to tune Pat the guitar, have a play and even show Zoe some chords!
Kieran is volunteering for an organisation in Cambodia who work with local people who need a loan to help them improve their life – they have a website (http://www.kiva.org/) where they post all of the applicants from all over the world with what they will use the money for e.g. to buy a cow and anyone can loan them the money which they will repay over the course of 1 year plus - the minimum amount you can loan people is $25 and they only have around 2% of people unable to make the repayments – a great idea if anyone wants to support a great cause!!
(back to what we did with Kieran and Holly)
The night out with the ‘locals’ was great as they took us all to the best places; a market, some good bars and Cambodian night clubs where we could let our hair down and bust some moves! Unfortunately Holly was poorly and having fed the fish ;) made an early exit so the rest of us partied the night away and the girls had the latest night since leaving the UK!
The next day we had to get up early to get a very cheap local bus to Siem Reap – luckily the bus was empty (except for about 4 travellers, 4 locals and a monk) so we could spread out for the long and extremely bumpy road across Cambodia!
We could tell what a fantastic place Siem Reap was as soon as we arrived! Just the right mix of busy, quiet, modern, old, culture and fun! We found ourselves a lovely place to stay right in the centre of town and went straight out to dinner to meet Sophie who we’d met on the bus at the ‘Dead Fish Restaurant’ which was amazing – the whole restaurant was a mish mash of different level platforms, most with chilled out seating on the floor and traditional Thai dancers on a platform in the middle of the restaurant. The food was great and the atmosphere was brilliant – even though we knew the whole time that in the basement was lurking at least 20 crocodiles that have been there since the restaurant was previously a crocodile farm!!
The next day we went to see one of the 8 wonders of the world – Angkor Wat; a collection/city of ancient temples built a very long time ago!! They were amazing! Our driver took us around the main ones and we got to explore these loads – Zoe and Kathryn both agreed their favourite was Tar Prom which had trees growing from within the walls and ceilings – it is the only temple that they have not done any reconstruction to and they have just let nature take it’s course – also featured in the film Tomb Raider this temple definitely had an action movie feel to it! Zoe and Kathryn might have had a few Lara Croft moments inside!!
After looking at the temples we asked our driver to take us to see some monkeys – they have monkeys living wild within the grounds and you often see then along some of the roads. Soon enough we had spotted 4 monkeys on the side of the road and our tuk tuk stopped so we could take some photos! So excited by this Kathryn jumped straight out and started crossing the road to get closer – the monkeys however had another idea – they started running across the road towards Zoe and jumped straight into the tuk tuk to join her! To say Zoe was petrified at this point would probably not even come close!!! The monkeys proceeded to sit next to Zoe and ‘play’ with her for a while during which time our tuk tuk driver offered Zoe some comforting words ‘I’m scared’!!! after a while we realised the monkeys wouldn’t actually hurt us and when they let go of Zoe she jumped out of the tuk tuk to let Kathryn have a go – by then they weren’t interested in any of us as they were being fed some bananas by a passer by!
A perfect end to the day – we all tucked up in bed for the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy on Star Movies!
The next day was an early start (well not as early as it was meant to be as Kathryn set the alarm for 6pm instead of 6am which meant when we woke up at 6.53am we only had 22mins to pack our bags and get ready to leave!) as we travelled on the long and bumpy road to Bangkok, due to Thai Airways stopping the road to the Thai border being resurfaced to encourage people to fly. We had a 5 hour bus trip to the border along a road FULL of pot holes – good job Kathryn can sleep anywhere! After crossing the Thai border and bringing some joy to some street kids with Pat the guitar we all carried on our long journey to Bangkok...
Speak soon, and remember...2 brushes a day keeps the dentist away!!
Keith xx
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