Hello once again, the last time we spoke, we were getting ready to leave Battambang to head for Siam Reap, well before we get into that there are a few things i forgot to mention in previous blogs. The first night in PP we stayed in a grotty hostle where the fan leaked on me, remember?? Well at four thirty in the morning a complete stranger unlocked our door with his key and walked into our room!! the conversation then went a bit like this- "ugh what? who errm" from me, responce "Oh, i'm teribly sorry this does'n't appear to be my room" "no what, who are you??" "yes well i'm terribly sorry, i don't know how i've managed to get in to you're room, this is awefully embarasing, don't worry i didn't see anything, well good night then" i leapt out of bed, locked the door, turned the light on and made sure that it wasn't a crazy dream, we sat looking at each other for five minutes before we burst out laughing, "We are leaving at sunrise, right?"asked hev "oh hell yeah." I'm not quite sure how i left this out from the origanal blog.
So back to Siam Reap, we arrived off the bus into mr wherearewes back garden, no where near town (oh the joys of buying the very cheapest ticket avalible) luckly, oh sorts, we met a couple of american ladies,( one lady and her eighteen year old daughter) of which one could speak fluent khemer (well, what would you expect, her family is from thailand??) so we got a cheap tuk-tuk to a sucsession of bad hotels, where clearly the drivers were on commision! When we visited the hotel the american ladies were going to stay for a mere $15/night, we dicided it was time for a "DEATH MARTCH" !! "NO BLOODY WAY" was the responce i got, oh ok i would go on my own, leaving hev to gaurd the bags a relax with a cold drink, i was bundled in to the back of a tuk-tuk and told its a free ride to my friends hotel, its the best in town!! What he failed to say is what it was best at, cause it wasn't best at being a place to stay or relax, unless you enjoy building sites, rubbish dumps and the smell of drains. The cheak of the man to tell me it would "ONLY" cost $10/ night, about turn back to hev. When the tuk-tuk pulled in the owner of the hotel came out to meet me, he asked why wouldn't i stay at his hotel, so we told him it was out of our price range (which is not a lie, it just aint the whole truth), so like a man selling drugs on a busy street, he croched forward looked over both shoulders and whispered "$11/night, but you tell no body, ok", so we stayed at his hotel felling we had done well, the tuk-tuk driver (whom was twelve, if a day) offered, nay pleaded to be our driver to go and see some big anchor, so we agreed a time a date to go( $15 all day on thursday) with his cute boyish good looks we shook hands, he whinced as i seem to have squeezed to hard, and he left.
We dumped our gear, glanced at a map of siam reap(which is tiny and imposible to get lost in??) and set off, the plan was to get to know town, not the main strip or the restraunt area, or the wats, but the dusty empty back alleys of siam reap, guess what, it was my much sort after.................."DEATH MARCH", no map, no water and the hottest place we have been to so far, proved hard for a sence of humour to survive in.
When we finally returned to the hotel, drenched and in silence, we got the water and a map from the room, glanced at the map(which was upside down) and strolled off to town, or as it turned out to be the middle of no where, bad times!! About turn, forward march, neither of us spoke a word for about two k untill the silence was broken with"you knob" no responce other than a weak nod was needed. By the time we reached BAR STREET we were done, we wandered past bar after bar, all much of a muchness untill, 50cent beer $1 taco, like sharks to blood, two soaking wet brits squelched in to two wicker chairs and with a steady drible of sweat forming a puddle under each seat ordered the worlds best, and most deserved glasses of beer!
We spent the next day walking slowly round town, still leaving a trail of sweat behind us( for some as yet unknown reason, we could not stop sweating in Siam reap, it was,as it sounds, gross) That evening we hired a driver to take us to the ticket office for the anchor, (if you buy the ticket after five, you can go see sunset, then use it the next day) we were dropped at the bottom of a hill, after buying the tickets, and told it was a great place to watch the sun set. We took the twenty minute walk up the hill, we climbed the temple at the top, and we saw the sun setting over...not the anchor, but a lake,the anchour was the other way?? Why would any one think this was a good place to watch a sunset?? I clearly miffed, surgested that we left to:A beat the rush of people going down the hill in the dark and B try take a picture of the anchor bathed in late afternoon glory, nither of these happened, as the sun set to fast, and our driver drove too slowly, still an intresting evening. The morning brought our twelve year old driver to our hotel, we had the night before, over a beer of two, decided which piles of stone we wanted to see, so we showed him on the map (quick point there are millions of tuk-tuks in siam reap, a true buyers market) he told us it was not possible to go to all these places in one day, we disagreed, so he told us it would cost $20 instead, we already thought $15 was a bit much, so told him the way it was, $15 or we will walk ten yards and find someone else, he laughed and said, no one will take you for $15 to all those sites, ten yards down the road, we proved him wrong!!

So with our new driver we set off for the temples of angkor wat, we had decided to leave the biggest till last, build ourselves up to what had been described as the most spectacular ancient temple. The day was going well the first temple, was in a good state with vines and trees growing through the walls, this is what we had come to see Prasat Ta Som had the provibiale juices flowing, we jumped back into the tuk-tuk and continued round the supprisingly long road to our next stop( supprising, only to me, as i had the previous evening suggested we hired push bikes as "it cant be that far" the responce i got can't be published on an open page) Preah Khan, this was a much larger complex that was still in good condition considering its age, there were clear signs of vandalisiam (the Khemer rouge did quite a bit of cultural damage as well as all they did to the people of this country) there were also signs of looting by either locals to build houses, or, the thai people to enrich there culture (which used to be owned by cambodia). We once again boarded our chariot and were wisked off to the Elephant terace, Lepur king temple and Bayon. The elephant terrace was, well a terrace that had carrvings of elephants on it, the lepur kings temple was a corridor of carvings to different gods, which was lined with legless beggers (not brown bag, kestrell super strengh legless) who seemed to all have lost there legs is landmine accidents. (our quistion later was, "how did they get up that high with out legs?, did they climb?, were they put there by an able bodied person?, or did they climb up there, then took there prostetic legs off, put them under there blankets behind them, then did a poor job of hidding them) Bayon was huge and by far the most impresive temple we had seen so far, the huge carved faces looking down on you, very cool, met some local kids who were affraid of a giant orange ballon?? who would have figured??

The tuk-tuk raced to or next destination which is the tomb raider temple, as we were bouncing allong, we started to feel as if we had been here before?? "Is this the way back to our hotel??" "YES" "What about tomb raider and angkor??" "Ohh, well i didn't look at your map" "So we can go now, yes" "But they are very far away!!" "Well, we want to see them" "Ohh, rasen fassen", big u-turn and off we went to Angkor, not last like we wanted, but we were going to get to see it at least.

How can i discribe one of the most famous,iconic, landmarks of the ancient world, well...........ermm.......underwhelming. Hev was at least whelmed, which i thought was quite good. The outside of the building (a lot like the taj in india) is stunning, but then inside is as intresting as a french economics lesson is to an eskimo.If you have an intrest in the ancient, and not so ancient carrvings i suppose you an your anorack could be there for hours. We found more entertainment with the kids, whom wernt affraid of a big orange balloon! We're still not sure if letting kids bounce around angkor was wrong, but it was funny, watching tour guides loose there place in there well rehearsed speall, because a child goes bouncing past laughing its head off, on a large orange ball. The only thing i didn't find funny was the "Ripppp" as i showed of my tallents to said children. I have never been so thankfull for a bag full of shirts and t-shirts, so after amusing ourselves for longer than we expected we left, half expecting to be taken back to our hotel, for an argument about price of tuk-tuk verses sight seen. We were again bouncing along a strech of road that looked familliar, was it from earlier in the day or last night??

The tuk-tuk stopped outside the tomb raider temple, which is the greatest thing i have seen in cambodia. Huge tree trunks growing up out of solid stone buildings, vines slowly crushing stone, tree growing at fourty-five degree angles, we felt like kids in the fun house. If the driver would have understood our original plan, we would have gone back to the hotel on a low, after angkor the tomb raider temple left us buzzing and loving our day out(if we ever get the pics up loaded you will see what i mean). That night we sat drinking beer, feeling like indiana jones, after discovering the temple of doom, as a treat we went for a fish foot massage (only the pics can truely explain)

We spent the next couple of days drinking beer relaxing with the odd foot massage, a bus trip back to PP to get Loa visas, and another bus ride with chickens to Kratie, which we missed, as it left without us, we then chased it down on motorbikes, with rucksacks on our backs, through mid morning rush hour. On april fools day! On arrival we booked a swim in the rapids of the mekong, a boat trip to see irawaddey dolphins and a sunset death march to a temple(which we couldn't see due to the trees!!)

We booked tickets to Ban lung and set off with the most disorganised bus company to date. The twelve o clock bus left at quater to three! We tried to load our bags into the bus were told to take them on board, no wait, put them underneath, no not that side, no, the other side, oh wait thats full, back to the first place, oh can i see your ticket, oh i know its peeing down but things have to be done properly!! The guy was lucky hev didn't throtle him, clearly an idiot.We drove through the worst thunder stom, down the worst road at night to finaly arive in Ban lung, where by chance a cambodian man on our bus was staying at the same place we wanted to, so he phoned ahead, booked us a room and pick up from the bus stop, amazing, as Ban lung is higher than the rest of cambodia so it was.....COLD.

We have been to some waterfalls and an amazing lake, once on the back of motorbikes and once as a death march, luckly we were picked up on the way back by a local, keen to earn a dollar. We have discovered it is possible to fit to westerners and a cambodian on one motorbike, but it's the second scarist thing we have done, since leaving home. The first?? We met a snake whilst walking down the road at night, it was huge, with giant fangs and a look of death in it's eyes!!(or it was a small black snake that slide past the two of us whilst we stood and watched, you can choose)

We have booked our mini-bus to Lao for tomorrow, so next time we speak it will be from country number four!

So stay safe, avoid the big black snakes, and we will speak again. love and hugs

The shoe string two Xoxo