Ah..... loved ones,

I am in the sunny town of Siem Riep, in Cambodia and just south of Ankhor, the city of temples.

Much general amusement has been experienced since last I wrote, only two days ago! First there was the excitement at the border where we crossed into Cambodia with Thai visas that had expired two days previously.... We had been told that it would cost 400 baht in fines for two days, or we could pay 600 baht to get an extension, so were advised not to bother. However after that we got an E-mail from Matt from Vietnam, talking about how he had done the same thing at Bangkok airport and was given quite a lot of hassle. So we were quite worried when we were queuing up, trying to find the line with the most friendly looking customs official. Usually this would be an exercise in futility, but the God's were smiling on us and everyone seemed to be in a good mood.

We were passed through the line so quickly we thought we'd got away with it, but were then pointed to another queue - practically half the people in the line had late visas, and had to queue up again to pay the fine (incidently, 400 baht is 5 pounds).... so it was all good really. Although we were the only people from our bus that were late, so by the time we had finished they were nowhere to be seen. Then we had to cross the border and go through immigration, where we found our bus driver waiting patiently for us... bless him.

Cambodia is nothing like Thailand. From the Thai border you can already tell it's going to be different, and then it just gets more and more so as you go on. The standard of living in Thailand looks pretty poor compared to the West, but it's nothing like Cambodia. People crossing the border are literally dressed in rags, dragging carts behind them that are resting on two squashed bicycle wheels. The road is none existent. In places they are in the process of building a road over the top of the bumpy dust track, but this just gets in the way. The bus would have an average speed of about 15 miles an hour, and it would feel like a roller coaster for most of the way.

When we stopped to get a drink, we were mobbed by children. At the first stop they just came and stood next to us looking at us, and Marie-Louise had made the mistake of having a bag of crisps in a carrier bag. When they had seen this they wouldn't give up until guilt had given away all our food! The next time we stopped they mobbed us trying to sell us things. Cans of coke and beer in cool boxes, bits of chopped pineapple, fried bananas in leaves, that sort of thing. Simpply not wanting something doesn't seem to be enough. I ended up buying a can of coke from one kid and distributing the change from a one pound fifty note as evenly as I could... and still was made to feel guilty by the little lad with the puppy who I left out.

Anyway, the bbus dropped us off at a guest house that was owned by the bus company. They were very nice about it - they told us it was their guest house and if we didn't like the rooms we shouldn't feel forced to stay. As it turned out, the room was very nice - very large, bathroom, fans, and all for $5 a night. And what with it being about nine o clock we weren't really in the mood to go off searching.

So we stayed, and the next day (after sleeping for 12 hours), we went off to investigate outside. It turned out that we were a good few KMs from the town centre, and we decided to move the next day (today) into the town.

This wasn't as easy as you might think. It's not just a case of "I'll be checking out tommorow, thank you very much". If only. We told them last night of our intentions just so it wouldn't be a surprise for them. They looked heartbroken. They were extremely nice and very kind, but they were quite insistent that we should stay. They offered us a discount on our room and free motorbike rides into town whenever we wanted them. This was all good, but motorbikes aren't really my thing, and we did want to be in the town. Then they pointed out that if we got our tour guide from somewhere else (the guest houses all run tours to the temples nearby) then their tour guide would not be able to afford to go to school, and Cambodia is a very poor country don't we know. I explained that we weren't leaving to go and live in England, and that the next guest house we stay in will be staffed by very poor cambodians, and it was good to distrubute the wealth... this was about as effective as you can imagine.

In the end we finally managed to leave, but only after agreeing to let them take us to the temples tommorow. We got another room in town for the same price, just as nice but with hot water as well.

We've been learning a lot about Cambodia since we've been here, all about the Killing Fields and Pol Pot and all that business. Very unpleasant. But it's good to see it all. It makes me think of that quoute, can't remember who from, but it was a hundred or so years ago and he said "I won a double lottery at birth. Firstly, I was born an Englishman. And, I was born into money".

Does make you realise how lucky you are.

Speak soon,

Mike

p.s. How are things at home? All cool? Anything interesting happening?









Family unit!!

Still in Siem Reap, leaving tommorow for Pnom Phen (sp?), which is Cambodia's capital. Probably going to be taking the bus because it's a lot cheaper than the boat down the river, even though we had said we would take the boat because of the crap roads... we have been asured that the road is good between here and the capital (and by good, of course, I mean that there is one).

spent the last few days exploring the Ankhor temples, which are exremely impressive. There's loads of them, all nearly 1000 years old, and very nice. the main one, The Ankhor Wat, is a huge thing with towers and walls and gates and carving all over the place and stuff. In order to get up to the towers, you have to climb these stone steps that are about four inches wide and nearly a foot steep... not too bad on the way up but on the way down you really are taking your life in your hands....

Most of the temples have been cleared of the jungle that had claimed them, but a couple had been left the way they were, so you could get a real Indianna Jones feeling when you're exploring them. I think I must have taken a whole film of photos of trees that were growing on top of the stone, huge things, with massive roots wrapping around the walls and finally getting down to the earth below... all very impressive/gothic/mysterious/pretty... and all with just a wall and a tree!!

The Cambodian people are very friendly, and they are quite enthusiastic salespeople... for example, a walk down the road would have a few tuk tuk drivers (the motorbike taxis that are attached to a little thing you sit in... not very good at explaining... a motorised rickshaw, you know what I mean) saying "you want a tuk tuk sir?" and then you say "no thank you", they say "very cheap!" and then you say "I just live there!" and point to your home, about ten feet away, and then they say "very cheap! where you want to go!"

And again whenthe children at the temples try and sell you things... "You want camera film?" "No thanks". "Very cheap, very good". "No thanks, and besides, that film doesn't work in my camera". "But very cheap!!" "But it wouldn't work!!!!!" "Very cheap!!!!!!"

Anyway, the children are very good salespeople. The 10 year old girls selling postcards speak more Swedish than I do, which was very embarrassing, but they are so sweet you end up paying twice as much as they asked for stuff you don't want just because you think they've earnt it.

Another thing that isn't quite as nice is the beggars. Bless them, obviously, but they're everywhere... usually they only have one leg or similar, and obviously if you've got a stray dollar in your pocket you hand it over. But then, like this morning, you walk around the corner and there's a guy with no hands... your brain does this really horrible thing where it decides that having no hands is worse than having no legs, so you have to give that guy money too... and it's all very nice and you feel good and you don't really need the dollar, but at the same time you have to refuse them as well because if you didn't then you would walk to a restaurant and back to have a $6 meal, and it would cost you more than 20!

But everyone is very nice. A lot of travellers say that they like Cambodia a lot more than Thailand, and I can understand why but at the same time I don't yet agree (i also think that it's the kind of 'cool' thing that travellers love saying at parties). It's not that the country isn't beautiful or the people aren't lovely because it is and they are. It's just that it's small, and because of the poor or non existent roads, there's only a few places you can really go to see.

Anyway, I'll write from the capital when we get there!

Lots of love,

Mike






Hello.

Not yet found someone who will let me blow up their only cow with a rocket launcher, bazooka, or rocket propelled grenade...

The search continues..

In the meantime, have been looking aroundthe lovely city of temples that is Ankhor. But that's not very funny, so I don't want to talk about it.

What is relativly funny, is the way everyone tries to sell you things you don't want. For example, if you're walking home, someone tries to offer you a taxi ride. when you point to where you're going, they tell you that they'll take you somewhere else for EVEN cheaper. You tell them that as you can see your home from where you are, and it's only ten feet away, you don't really need a taxi. Then they look at you like you're just a simple westerner and say "but, it's cheap!!"

At night, everyone offers you weed. It's brilliant. I'm not one for buying weed, only an occassional smoker of other peoples, so obv I'm not interested. but the conversations you have with the drug dealers are brilliant!

HIM: Hey, mister, you want a little something to smoke?
ME: No thanks, but good luck to you anyway!
HIM: It's really good!
ME: But I don't do.
HIM: It's cheap!
ME: No thanks, I don't do. Don't smoke. Don't. I don't smoke.
HIM: But this stuff is the best stuff around. Better than from bars or hotels.
ME: But that doesn't change the fact that I don't smoke it, does it?
HIM: It's cheap!
ME: I'm sure it is, my good man. You seem to be a fair trader. But I don't want any.
HIM: It's good though, and cheap.
ME: AAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Why do you torment me so????!!!!
HIM: for you my friend, fie dollar.
ME: Please?
HIM: It's cheap.
ME: Won't you leave me alone?
HIM: OK.
ME: thank you.
HIM: Four dollar.

And so it goes, until finally he gives up. By which time you've walked out of his patch and into someone elses, so the whole process starts again.

But the little children are the best. They convince you that you DO want whatever it is they've got, and they do it by being scary. One girl in particular gave me a piece of paper with a hand drawn flower on it and a long message, in perfect english, wishing me good luck for the entire future just because she wanted me to buy 10 postcards for a dollar. And she told me statistics about England that even I didn't know, like population of London etc.

AND, and this is really embarrassing, the ten year old children selling postcards in bare feet and dressed in rags, sometimes supporting a baby under one arm, speak Swedish better than I do!

Obviously this was for the benefit of the Swedish bird, but I think it was just to make me feel like a s***.

so there you go.

I'm off.

Mike.

p.s. Spenning... Aventeur... En jedi kraver inte detta.

p.p.s. Prize for the first (non-Swedish) person to tell me what that means.