Tediously Travelling to Thailand

Today we arrived at the last country both me and Lauren are visiting together. We got the 8am bus heading to Bangkok, which was only ten minutes behind schedule - basically on time by Cambodian standards. We had asked for a bus that went all the way through; where you weren't required to take all your belongings off at the border and get on another bus the other side. However that's exactly what we had to do.

We arrived in Poipet, the border town around 11:30 and got off the bus with all our luggage. First we had to go into the Cambodia departure office, fill out the departure cards and get our passports stamped and fingerprints scanned. This was fairly straightforward. The queues are fairly short and there was quite a few open desks each with their own queue.

Next we had to walk about five minutes to the Thai immigration arrival office. We got arrival cards and joined a queue for 'foreign passports' that was waiting to go up some stairs. Being in Asia, some people didn't understand the long line waiting at the bottom of the stairs and just pushed round the side. This led to a mad dash and scramble up the stairs when we were eventually allowed up and a hectic situation where everyone was trying to get through one door into a room  to join a queue to reach the immigration desks. The queue snaked around the room and moved very slowly. It took us two and a half hours to get through to the other side. At one point I saw two ladies who were told to go back as they were in the wrong place hand some money to the immigration office worker and he let them continue. Unfortunately we didn't have any money either otherwise we would have bribed him to get to the front of the queue.

Once we had had our passports stamped we had to put our bags through a scanner and into Thailand we went. We met with the bus company and the other passengers outside KFC just down the road from the border. I got a drink and some chicken nuggets. Then we all piled into minibuses and off we went. After about 30 seconds we were stopped at a police checkpoint. All the doors were opened and about 3 of our passports were checked. We were counted numerous times and told to put our seat belts on. There was lots of discussion but we had no idea what was going on. After a while they shut the doors and we turned round and went back to KFC. We think the issue was that the girl on the front seat didn't have a seat belt available for her to use. The bus organisers told her she'd have to get a motorbike through the checkpoint and then she could just get back on the bus. We all found this a funny suggestion by it didn't ever materialise. Eventually (we think) the organisers just put her on a different mini bus. We went back to the checkpoint where we were repeatedly counted again but this time we were given the all clear and off we went to Bangkok at around 3:15pm.

Hour an hour later, we reached another check point. Thankfully this one we whizzed through. We had a 15 minute petrol and toilet stop and then about 5 minutes later we stopped again at another petrol station. That's when I noticed the check engine light was on.  The driver had the bonnet up and was banging something and continually turning the engine on and off again.  I have no idea what he did but after about 15 minutes he got back in the minibus and we continued on our way, check engine light still on.

We had one more toilet stop around 7:30pm and then we made it to Bangkok. The traffic was absolutely crawling and it took us forever to get to our destination. We were dropped off near the busiest backpacker road and we got a tuktuk to our hostel, arriving over 13 hours after we left Siem Reap. We checked into our room, which we currently seem to be sharing with 4 Spanish boys and then headed out to the nearest shop. There was a market type thing just across the road and I got some chicken pieces and then a drink from a nearby shop. Chicken and a drink seems to be the thing to have today. Then we returned to the hostel, showered and retired to our beds.

Souvenir Shopping

This morning we had a nice lay-in, going down to breakfast at 9:45. Then we headed out to spend the last of our Cambodian money as tomorrow we move on. We went to the post office and the market in search of stickers and other souvenirs. It was very hot again and just standing outside for a minute was enough to you sweat. We were out for about two hours and then we returned to the hostel.

We spent the afternoon, as per usual, by the pool. Around 6pm we had dinner at the hostel as it was cheap and convenient. I had Lok Lak, which was a beef stir fry, with rice. It came with a sauce which I tasted first, before pouring it over the food. It turned out to be a very peppery sauce, but it was still very nice.  Lauren had a chicken burger.

After dinner we went and got changed out of our bikinis and went out to spend the rest of our money at the various nightmarkets around the town. Despite there being many many stalls, they all seem to sell almost the exact same thing. There wasn't much variety. They either sold then same tshirts, the same jewelry and souvenir items, or very similar paintings. Lauren bought two tops and I got a shot glass to add to the collection. I've been getting one from every country - I can't remember if I've mentioned it previously. Then we returned to the hostel to pack. 

Sunrise at Angkor Wat

Last night after I posted yesterday's post and everyone on our room was in bed we had a little bit of excitement in the form of a power cut. All the sockets, the WiFi, the lights and the aircon were affected (obviously). This meant we couldn't charge our phones and wee were probably going to bake to death. A further problem of not being able to charge phones was that they were almost it of battery  (in most people's cases) and they were required for alarms as 4 out of 5 of us had to get up at 4am this morning as we were heading off to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Thankfully after the majority of us had fallen asleep, the power came back on and all was well.  Lauren had to get up and turn all the lights that had come back on off as everyone else was asleep.

We got up at 4am and were picked up by Mr Han's (see TukTuk Tour post) nephew, Mr Dara, in his tuktuk. We whizzed off to get entry tickets at the ticket office which has been moved recently to a location completely out the way. We got there and waited along with scores of others for the ticket office to open at 5am. Sunrise and sunset are very popular times to visit the temples. It cost $37 for a one day ticket which had our photo on it, presumably to stop you giving it to someone else. We got back in the tuktuk and went off to the Angkor Wat complex. There was quite a few people there already when we got there and we jostled around a bit for a good spot to stand on the edge of the reflection pool, which is basically a large pond. And then we stood there until the sun came up behind the iconic towers. We were probably stood there for over an hour but it was beautiful. The sun rose very quickly when it did eventually come up.

After the sun was up, we ventured inside the temples to have a wander round. There was intricate carvings on many of the walls which were quite impressive since it was built around the 12th century. We queued for about 30 minutes to get into the Bakan temple on the middle of the Angkor Wat complex. We had to climb up some very steep stairs to get into it but there was a nice view over the complex from the top.

We wandered round, absolutely sweating, until about 8:45am. It may have been early but it was still at least 30°. We got a drink and went to the loo before returning to the tuktuk. Under the seat of the tuktuk Mr Dara had stashed a cool box and he offered us some bottles of water. We were very grateful. 

We hopped back in the tuktuk and Mr Dara started driving towards our next stop, Angkor Thom. On the way we saw a whole load of monkeys on the side of the road and Mr Dara stopped so we could take photos. We were able to get really close to them. There was some younger ones play fighting while the mother watched.  This soon stopped when the dad came over and pulled them apart. 

At the entrance arch to Angkor Thom we got out the tuktuk and walked along the bridge which has large statues of faces lining the road under the archway. On the other side we got back on the tuktuk and continued to the Bayon Temple at Angkor Thom. This temple originally had over 50 towers but now only had around 30. It took ten years less than Angkor Wat to build, 27 as opposed to 37 years, using stone carried by elephants from far away mountains. We did actually see some elephants today. People were able to get a ride on them from outside the entrance arch to the side of the temple, but a) we had a tuktuk and b) we've seen many things about how riding elephants, especially using seats on their backs, is cruel and they are often mistreated. 

Despite Angkor Wat being the iconic landmark, and being very impressive form the outside, both Lauren and I agreed that the Bayon temple at Angkor Thom was more interesting in terms of detail and decoration. This temple had many many Buddha heads carved out of stone watching over you in every direction. It as pretty cool. We looked around this temple before going back to the tuktuk and going to our final stop for the day.

Ta Prohm temple was slightly less well preserved. There were concrete blocks on the ground and trees had grown in and around the building, which had created some quite interesting sights.  This temple is where the film 'Tombraider' was filmed, but having not seen the film, this didn't really excite me that much. We walked round and took photos before heading back to the hostel. 

As we were driving back we came across another group of monkeys so Mr Dara stopped again for us and we got out and took photos and watched them. There were some very cute tiny baby monkeys being looked after by their mums. One mum just had a grip on the baby's tail to stop it running off. I picked up a bit of discarded food and gave it to the baby. It was so cute. Two other monkeys were sitting on a parked motorbike. One was chewing on the seat, trying to rip the mirror off and admiring itself in the mirror. It was quite amusing to watch although I don't think the motorbike driver would have appreciated it.

We got back to the hostel around 12:15pm. We had been out for almost 8 hours and we were very hot and sweaty. We got into our bikinis and went and sat by the pool. We got some food to keep us going until dinner and spent the rest of the day lounging in and around the pool.

Around 6pm we dried off and put some clothes on so we could go out for dinner. We went down a road called 'Pub Street' which is basically full of bars and restaurants. We stopped at a restaurant where I had stir fried beef and cashew nuts with rice, and Lauren had spag bol.
We then returned to the hostel, showered and collapsed onto our beds. It has been a long but awesome day.

Entrance to Angkor Thom

Ta Prohm

Pagodas, Fish and Pools

This morning we got up at 9 and had breakfast at the hostel before going out for a wander. We walked a shirt distance to Wat Preah Prohm Rath, a fancy pagoda by the river. It had a huge statue of a sleeping Buddha at the back of the temple. We looked round there for a while and then headed to the Independence Gardens. The gardens were a bit plain so we just sat on a bench and had a cold drink before getting a tuktuk back to the hostel. 

It was gone 12pm by the time we got back. I decided to give the hour long food tour run by the hostel a try but Lauren wasn't interested.  It wasn't until 2pm so we sat with our feet in the hostel pool to keep cool until it was time for me to go on the tour. Below is a picture of the description of the tour.....

It turned out to be a bit of an inaccurate description. A group of 5 of us, 3 middle aged Canadian woman, myself and a Brazilian called Filipe, walked over to the market with our guide. Our first taster was a plate of beef/egg and noodles. I had beef and it was really nice, but it was quite a basic Asian dish.

Next we went to another stall where we were served a plate of tasters of different fish (and some tofu). There was crab, octopus, long bean wrapped in fish, and meatballs which were apparently made out of fish. I tried and liked them all. They all tasted pretty much the same. This was the most exotic the tour got. We were also given a drink of sugar cane juice mixed with pineapple and orange, with lots of ice, which was actually quite tasty.

Our third food stall was a dessert stall. I tried sticky rice with peanuts. It was slightly warm. It tasted OK but I wasn't a huge fan and didn't finish the bowl. And that was that. Our guide bought some fruit from the fruit stall and took it back for us but obviously I didn't have any. It was a bit of a disappointment ask had wanted to see some weird and interesting foods which we hadn't really done, but at least I tried some new fish....

The rest of the afternoon was spent with Lauren by and in the pool. We had a early dinner, did some snack shopping for tomorrow and retired to bed.

Pudding. The second on the right is the one I had.

Bye to Battembang

This morning we had a lie in until around half ten and then got up and packed our stuff and checked out of the hostel. I'd been awake since around half 7 as the room was just so hot. It was only as we were leaving and I was turning off the fans that I discovered that despite it being on the highest number, 1 was actually the highest setting.

We settled our bill and ordered lunch from the hostel as we were being picked up from there at half past 1. We ate our food and then hung around for an hour until half 1, then we hung around some more. Time keeping doesn't appear to be Cambodia's strong point. The bus eventually turned up around 2pm and on we got. It was a four hour drive to our next and final Cambodian stop. We stopped around half way for a break. There was one point of the journey that made one couple put on their seat belts. All I knew about the incident was an urgent sounding horn, followed by the bus swerving a little and breaking,  and the sound of something hitting the bus. The driver didn't stop so I assume it wasn't a person but I have no idea. A French dude sitting at the back stood up and looked out the back window with some haste and concern but I couldn't understand what he reported back, as I don't speak French.

We arrived at Siem Reap around 6:15pm and got our bags from the bus. We wee greeted by a Cambodian dude with a sign with our names on. Mr Han's nephew apparently. We had tried to stop Mr Han from leaving us obliged to use his nephews tuktuk services but we hadn't been successful and we were too polite to tell him to go away. So we have made arrangements with him for a tour on a future occasion. He dropped is off at our hostel for free as well so couldn't really say no.

We dropped our bags off and sat on the beds for a bit, which are wide and really high with nothing to stop you rolling off. Then we went out for a wander towards the night market. There are fairy lights everywhere and everything looked so nice. I don't know if they're a permanent fixture or if they are for the new year celebrations happening in a weeks time.  Lauren bought an anklet and we both got drinks. It was still very hot. We returned to the hostel and I skyped mum and we sat in the nicely air conditioned room before going to bed.