Bangkok, Thailand

 

October 5th - October 11th 2011

We left Cambodia for Thailand by bus and were sad to say goodbye to our Siem Reap accomodation called 'Prohm Roth Guesthouse'. The guesthouse which is run by the Suon brothers couldn't have been more helpful and friendly. They offered a free breakfast every morning and on the day that we left were running a little late with the breakfasts so they packed up our American style pancakes and even a little bag of maple syrup for us to take before waving us goodbye. Definately recommended if you ever want to visit Angkor Wat. The journey by bus was another interesting one, I got the window seat and regretted in when cockroaches emerged and started running up and down the curtains, the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere too.



Street scene in Bangkok

We eventually got to the Thai border and had to walk with our heavy rucksacks to the immigration centre. We had a bit of a nightmare as we had Thai visa's which we didn't want to activate until we returned to Thailand from Laos in a few weeks time. Arriving at a Thai border overland gives you 15 days in the country visa free and we wanted to utilise this and use our actual visa when we would want to stay in Thailand for longer than 15 days after Laos. We had read online that we could do this in the forums but when we came to do it we had no choice but to use our visa as we already had the visa stamp in our passports. Annoying but at least we were over the border. It meant that after Laos we would either have to organise another visa or only stay in Thailand for 15 days.

We continued the journey by minivan in to Bangkok and got dropped off, luckily I had seen the street we were staying on as we passed so after a 10 minute walk we were there withour getting lost. We woke up on our first morning in Bangkok and had designs on going to the Grand Palace. We walked there from our guesthouse grabbing lunch at a Seven Eleven on the way. We walked through the open green space called Sanum Luang and ended up walking the long way round the Palace as we couldn't find the entrance. A tuk tuk driver came up to us telling us that the Palace was closed for the day but that he could take us on a tour of the city, he then took my guide book and map and started writing all over it demonstrating where we could go. I had read about this in my guidebook as it's a scam that is very common in Bangkok, they tell you an attraction is closed, promise a city tour and then take you to workshops and factories and force you in to buying things, they get a commision from it. I warned Craig while his back was turned and we started to walk away. He then threatened us with a fist gesture and said basically if he saw us get in another tuk tuk he would beat us up. He then watched us as we walked away. Not the best first impression of the city!

We got to the palace entrance but Craig was wearing cut off trousers and there is a strict dress code (no exposed legs, open toed shoes or flip flops, no exposed shoulders etc) so we decided to come back tomorrow when we were appropriately dressed. We were feeling a bit down after being threatened and our planned days activity which we'd looked forward to being a no-go. We had a sit down in the park and decided that as the Bangkok National Museum was just two minutes away we would do that instead. We paid 200 baht to enter and wandered around the exhibits. It wasn't the best museum and seemed quite run down in comparison with the Angkor museum but the exhibits got a bit more interesting towards the end. The museum showcased examples of wood carving, puppets, mother of pearl inlay, weaponry, ivory, textiles as well as a history of Thailand exhibition. After the museum we had a picnic in the park and walked to Khao San Road the infamous backpackers road in Bangkok. We found a bookshop and bought Herman Melville's Moby Dick and Dan Brown The Da Vinci Code, random combination!

Day two we booked the first day of our Stray Asia tour for the 11th and walked to The Grand Palace suitably covered up this time. The Grand Palace was an amazing sight to behold. The temples are covered in sparkling mirrors, brightly coloured plasterwork and mosaics and jewels. Gold shimmered everywhere you looked. Walls were covered in beautiful painted murals with gold leaf and statues were also adhourned with gold and jewels. We took our time walking around the Palace which is a maze of buildings and courtyards and took photos as we went. One of the temples showcases the famous Emerald Buddha which we admired sat on the floor of the temple. Unfortunately some areas of the palace were out of bounds due to prayer sessions or building works so we weren't able to see everything that the complex had to offer. On the way out we had a look in the coin museum before making our way out to the park. A group of uniformed soliders had made formation outside on the road and we watched as they marched into the palace presumably performing the changing of the guard. We sat on a bench in the park and were approached by several Thai men asking where we were from, where we were going etc, some were friendly enough and some were trying to scam us into a shopping tour like yesterday. We were polite but as soon as any converstaion moved on to a tour we moved away.



The Grand Palace

Detail of a mural in The Grand Palace



Changing of the guard

After the Grand Palace and the park we walked quite a distance to the Golden Mount. We began climbing the steps to the top and admired the beautiful views over the city.



Views from the top of The Golden Mount

As it was now the weekend we decided to go to the weekend market which was a walk and a bus ride away. It was probably the biggest market that we have ever been to. Full to the brim with stalls selling just about eveything including puppies, kittens, bunny rabbits, fish and aquariums, furniture, clothes, shoes, food and so much more. We wandered around the stands and stalls for hours and bought a few bits and pieces as well as little chocolate cupcakes. We eventually made our way home and had dinner down Khao San Road, the food was average and when it came to paying the bill the staff tried to con us into paying more. When we tried to argue it about 5 members of staff got involved making a big scene as they were claiming we had eaten food that we hadn't ordered. We paid more than we should have and left in a bad mood cursing Bangkok yet again!

Cupcakes from The Weekend Market

We decided to take a canal boat to MBK a massive shopping centre because Craig needed a new backpack and we had heard that there was a cinema there. As we're both big film fans, we really wanted to get back some normality and see a film on the big screen. We took the boat which was very cheap and offered views of the houses and people by the canal which was interesting to see. We got off at the Siam Square stop and made our way to MBK. Just like the market the day before the shopping mall was huge. We looked around the stalls and shops and bought cinema tickets to see Contagion which was in English with Thai subtitles. We enjoyed the film and the novelty of having to stand for the national anthem just before it played. The cinema also served the most amazing caramel popcorn too. Craig managed to get a great new backpack for a good price too so it was a good day at MBK!

We spent the morning of our last full day in Bangkok at the post office so that Craig could send home his Cambodian artwork and we walked to Dusit Zoo. The Zoo was ok but as we've found with a lot of Asian Zoo's the amount of space the animals are given is not very much. We enjoyed seeing the animals but felt bad for them as yet again they looked bored and weren't given enough room to roam. We fed the elephants banana's and one took the whole basket out of my hands, once it had fallen on the floor he scooped up all the fruit and then handed back the basket to be put away which was funny to watch. One of the elephants had been taught a variety of tricks which were mind blowing. I enjoyed watching the elephant but couldn't help wondering how they train them to do these tricks. The trainer was using a stick to lightly touch pressure points which the elephant responds to but who knows whether the elephant was hit with the stick in the training process.

Elephant at Dusit Zoo

Bangkok has probably been our least favourite place that we have visited on our travels. It's the first place that we have felt worried about people talking to us, mostly because of being threatened and then the numerous people that tried talking us into a tuk tuk tour when we were sat in the park or walking along. We tried not to let the experience in Bangkok ruin our impression of Thailand as cities tend to be completely different to the rest of the country. We were looking forward to the start of our Stray Asia tour where we would get to see Northern Thailand and the whole of Laos which we had heard great things about.

Siem Reap, Cambodia

October 1st - October 5th 2011

We left Vietnam by bus and crossed the border in to Cambodia. The journey was a long one and after leaving Ho Chi Minh at about 6 am we arrived in Siem Reap Cambodia late in the evening. The journey had also been delayed so the poor person picking us up had been waiting for about two hours for us, he was lovely about it and held a heart shaped sign with our names in and took us by tuk tuk to our guesthouse down the road. We headed out for dinner as we were starving and found the infamous 'Pub Street' full of tourists. We had dinner at a Mexican place which was delicious and made up for our long day with no stops for lunch or snacks.

Delicious vegetarian chimichanga at Viva Restaurant.

We spent our first day in Siem Reap relaxing after our tiring day travelling from Vietnam. We found a great market and I got two print dresses for $9 which i've lived in ever since. We spent the afternoon at the Angkor National Museum learning about Angkor Wat which we would be visiting tomorrow. The museum was well laid out and quite interesting but at $12 USD it was pretty expensive. We had dinner at a street stall to save money as after paying for the museum and my dresses I was a little over budget for the day.

We got up early the next day as we would be spending the day at Angkor Wat and the other complex of ruins and temples called Angkor Thom. We hired a tuk tuk and driver for the day to take us around to all the different sites as it's all very spread out. Of course being our luck it was raining again, it's always a beautiful sunny day when we aren't doing much and then rains when we are outside all day. The journey by tuk tuk to Angkor Wat was fun, we purchased our ticket at the entrance gate which was $20 USD. Approaching Angkor Wat was an impressive sight, even in the rain. There is a long path leading up to the famous building which even though was full of tourists taking photo's is still a breathtaking sight. We walked along the walkway admiring the views across the Angkor Wat sight and finally went inside. We explored the temple for a couple of hours, climbing big steps to get into high up rooms full of statues and carvings on the wall. One of the carvings stretched all along one wall and depicted a famous scene from Hindu mythology called 'The Churning Of The Sea Of Milk'. We had learned about the myths and stories from Hinduism and Buddhism in our visit to the Angkor Museum so to see the bass relief carving in person was fantastic.

Approach to Angkor Wat

We looked down all the corridors and in all the rooms and courtyards that we could find before finally finding our driver and moving on to Angkor Thom. We stopped at the South Gate and took photo's when a line of elephants walked by the tuk tuk. It was the first time on our trip to Asia that I had seen any outside of a zoo environment and it was great to watch them walk by.

Elephants walking by.

The next temple we went to was Bayon temple which was a lot smaller and far less crowded than Angkor Wat. It seemed to be more ruined as well and we spent our time walking through the very narrow corridors being careful not to slip on the wet and slippery stones. This temple had a lot of faces carved in to the stones that appeared to be staring down at us as we walked around the temple. We left Bayon temple and walked through a bit of soggy marshland to get to the next sight called Baphuon. We walked along the raised walkway which was surrounded by water and up to the temple. We weren't able to go inside this one so we admired it from ground level and walked on to the next sight.

Faces in the stone.

We walked through a wooded area to get to the next sight and came across a giant spider's web with a huge spider in it. Luckily it was quite far away up in the tree's but it still gave us a little fright as neither of us like spiders at all. We followed the signs down some steps and through a ruined doorway to Phimeanakas temple. It looked a lot like a Mayan temple and was surrounded by water on all sides. Again we weren't able to explore this one but Craig said that it was his favourite of the temples we had seen, maybe due to it's shape and similarity to the temples in South America.

We walked along the Terrace Of The Elephants which had a view of the ruins opposite and we then walked down and stopped at a stall for lunch. The food seemed a lot more expensive compared to what we had seen in town, when we mentioned this to the woman she lowered the price of each dish by $1 so we sat down. I wasn't very impressed with my fried rice dish and when opening the ketchup bottle to improve it manged to splatter it all over my favourite top! That'll teach me for covering all my food in ketchup! After lunch we looked at the ruins opposite the Elephant Terrace and then got the tuk tuk to the next temple.

Temples in Angkor Thom.

There were two temples opposite eachother next and the whole area was swarming with children trying to sell postcards and trinkets. They followed us all around the temples continuously asking for us to buy something. It made us feel sad as it's the first real instance of children being used in the tourist industry that we have seen. We refused to buy anything as buying something from a child will only keep them on the streets longer. One couple next to us at a restuarant in Cambodia were approached by a little girl selling roses, they were obviously on holiday and hadn't come across this before so promptly bought a rose and gushed about how cute she was. The next second another girl came up with flowers and wouldn't leave them alone as she had seen them buy something before. The man then used a harsh tone telling her no and to go away. This sort of thing makes me really angry, buying things from them when it's a novelty and then getting angry at them when they don't leave you alone. They are only children at the end of the day who have been told to do it by their parents as it's more successful than them begging or selling themsleves.

The temples were in a fair bit of a ruined state and didn't take long to look at. One gentleman was selling rubbings of carvings from temples. We were really impressed with the pictures so Craig decided to buy one which depicts Angkor Wat in bright red. It's a striking image and is also quite big so will cost a fortune to frame when we get home! He did however manage to haggle it down from $20 to $10 so it was a bargain too.

Ta Keo was the next temple and one that you could climb the original stone steps to the top. My fear of heights prevented me from going to the top as there were no handrails and with my terrible balance I would definately slip and fall to the bottom. Craig loved the adventure of it and ran to the top and took photo's of the view to show me later. The final temple that we visited was Ta Prohm which we walked through a wood to get to. It was quite expansive with lots more nooks and crannies to discover. They were working on renovating parts of it so there were bits that were sealed off but still lots to see all the same. The very last temple that you can normally see was off limits to us today so we took the tuk tuk back home, stopping at the roadside after seeing some wild monkeys sat grooming eachother.

(Rather chubby) monkey on the roadside.

The day at the temples was an unforgettable one. It was the wish to see these that we decided to include Cambodia on our travels in the first place and it was definitely worth it.The next day was an uneventful one as we had such a great day at the temples the day before. We walked around Siem Reap and had another look around the markets as well as the overflowing river as many parts of Cambodia and Asia in general have been badly affected by flooding in the past weeks.

Hoi An and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

September 21st - October 1st 2011

Hoi An Boat

We left Hanoi by train on September 21st with some pot noodle type snacks and blueberry ice cream flavour oreo's. The journey would take about 15 hours but to save money we decided not to choose a sleeper carriage but sit for the entire journey. We settled into our seats which reclined right back in to the person behinds lap and watched the movie that they had on in the carriage. It was S Club 7's 'Seeing Double' the most random choice of film ever to be shown on a Vietnamese train journey. We tried to get some sleep and after finally drifting off a little bit with my head resting on Craig's shoulder he suddenly jumped out of his skin. It turned out that there was a family of cockroaches living in the arm rest/window sill and one had taken a walk on to Craig's arm giving him and me the fright of our lives! He stuffed a blanket down the side of the chair to keep them at bay which seemed to work and slowly morning came.

Our ticket was to Da Nang which is about half way from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh but we weren't really sure what we wanted to do there. As the train was coming to a stop we got chatting to a French couple who were on a backpacking holiday. They said that they were going to Hoi An which is a taxi/ bus ride from Da Nang. With no guide book/map to hand we decided to join them and along with some Malaysian girls we met at the taxi stop all went to Hoi An together.

We had a look at the French couple's Lonely Planet and found a cheap guesthouse to stay in. After settling in we explored Hoi An which already seemed so different to Hanoi. The streets and buildings felt European and the traffic was far less chaotic. Hoi An is famous for making cheap tailored suits and dresses so the streets were lined with dozens of tailor shops. We wandered down to the riverside and had lunch. It started raining as apparently it is monsoon season. Something we were not aware of!

Rain would be the theme for the whole time we were in Hoi An as it rained everyday and sometimes all day. We spent most of our time walking around ankle's deep in water with soggy rain mac's on. The rain gave us an excuse to go in restaurants and cafe's alot so we sampled many tasty dishes, some Vietnamese like fried noodles with vegetables and Cao Lau and some Western and Indian. One night we had two beers, one soft drink, two main dishes and two puddings and it came to about 6 pounds 70 pence.

Hoi An Structure

We booked two places on a sleeper bus for the 24th to take us to Ho Chi Minh City as the rain in Hoi An meant we were limited with what we could do. We would love to come back one day on holiday to enjoy the European feel but with the Vietnamese pricing.

The sleeper bus felt like The Knight Bus from Harry Potter, we were led down on beds but swaying all over the place as the bus avoided all the other traffic. The journey took a long time (about 20 hours) but I felt it was definately better than the cockroach infested train. We got a taxi into the backpacker district of Ho Chi Minh and found a tiny little room for about $10 a night with a bathroom and air con.

For our first day in Ho Chi Minh City we went to Ben Thanh Market which was huge, an indoor maze of clothes stalls, shoe stalls, food, accessories, jewellery, cosmetics and lots more. We also visited the Independance Palace as even though we hadn't done any research on it the building looked impressive and was only one pound to enter. The building was very interesting to walk through and we learned all about it's history in the Vietnam War. The views from the top balconies were also impressive so well worth the small entarnce fee.

After the Palace we went to the war Remnants Museum which tells the story of the Vietnam War from the perspective of Vietnam. Some of the images were very upsetting. They had huge photographs of men, women and children lying lifeless on the floor or being dragged into trucks to be disposed of. Some sickening images also included American soldiers posing with mutilated bodies of Vietnamese civilians, shocking to see and soemthing I will never forget. We learned that 3 million Vietnamese people lost their lives in the war, 2 million of which were civilians, ordinary people. I struggle with the idea of war anyway and the imagery and statistics of this particular war only confirmed my personal belief in pacifism.

After the harrowing war museum we wandered back to our district and had dinner at a place that specialised in Vietnamese, Italian and Mexican. The menu was huge and the food actually really good as we've found all Vietnamese food to be.

The next day we toured the Mekong Delta and enjoyed a boat ride along the huge Mekong river, a demonstration on rice paper making, lunch by the river, a traditional Mekong band and singers, honey tasting, coconut sweet demonstration and tasting, fruit tasting, a horse and cart ride and a canoe ride through the small creeks of the Mekong. We could have also tried snake wine but decided to skip that one! It was a great day learning about the life of the Vietnamese people that choose to live by the famous Mekong river and how they make their living.

Mekong Delta

On September 28th we had a more laid back day wandering the streets of Saigon and found the Notre dam which is like a smaller version of Paris' famous catherdral.

The next day we did a tour of a Cao Dai Temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. Caodism we learned is a religion based on lots of other religions, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on. They respect Jesus, Allah, Buddha and many other God's because they believe that the purpose of religion is to do good to prevent bad things from happening. The temple was very impressive, incorportaing themes from all different religions to make it different from anything was had ever seen before. We went in and watched mass unfold before moving on to the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels are very famous in Vietnam as they are the sight for alot of the fighting in the Vietnam War. We learned about the history of the tunnels and surrounding area and also had the opportunity to crawl through a fifty metre section. Craig and I were the only ones to complete it out of the group and emerged the other end to a round of applause. Although I do get clautraphobic I was very proud to have taken the leap and crawled on hands and knees through the tiny space with only a minimal amount of light.

Cao Dai Temple

Saigon was a great place to learn about the Vietnam War and a good base to explore the Mekong Delta too. The city felt quite different from Hanoi, even though Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam Saigon felt bigger and busier. Our Vietnam adventure was now over after so many amazing experiences and we had another journey to make, this time across the border and in to Cambodia.