SIEM REAP - 9 - 13 March

NEVER CROSS THE BOARDER TO ANOTHER COUNTRY WITHOUT CHECKING THE CURRENCY CONVERTION AND WITH A MASSIVE HANGOVER!

We did not follow the above advice!

After a couple of hours sleep we left Bangkok and started what should have been a 6 hour trip to Siem Reap.

If you have been to South East Asia you will know that no trip is simple, it envolves being taken to varoius places by various modes of transport, lots of waiting around and generally having no idea what is going on!

After about 5 hours we made it to the boarder still massively hungover. We walked over the border which is pretty cool as one minute you are in Thailand and a few steps later you are in Cambodia! We were then fed loads of lies about the currency in Cambodia and stupidly got scammed out of 60 quid with the exchange rates, it would never have happened if we were on the ball and we were kicking ourselves after. Such a school boy error, especially as we have been travelling before and know about these scams! They say bad things come in 3´s so after ipadgate and dogbitegate we were sure nothing else bad would happen!

Anyhoo our bad start to Cambodia was soon made a lot better when we finally made it to our hostel (12 hours after leaving Bangkok) in Siem Reap - it was called ´funky flashpackers´and it was awesome. Massive swimming pool, beats all day long, 2 bars serving stupidly cheap beer and great friendly staff. We met a couple en route to Siem Reap called Punga and Amanda who were also staying at the same place. As we arrived late the plan was to go straight to bed however we saw Punga and Amanda at the bar on our way out, then a pub crawl arrived at our hostel and next thing we know we are up drinking for the rest of the night. At 30p a beer who wouldnt?!

Next morning we were pretty groggy but wanted to get up and see Siem Reap so we went for our obligatary walk around the town to get our bearings. We ate some local food (Hickey discovered his new favourite dish - the traditional Cambodian food lok lak, which he had at least every other day during our time in Cambodia!) and pretty much chilled by the pool for the rest of the day.

Hickey had injection 3 the next day and experienced Cambodia hospitals! It was very strange, we were pointed in the direction of a doctor sitting at his desk, we try to explain what we need and he disappears for 10 minutes comes back with the injection, does it at his desk and just says thats 25 Dollars, cash in hand and then we leave!! Simples!

That evening we went to the night markets and hunted out the traditional Cambodian Amok curry, which was served in a coconut! We then went to pub street,funnily enough a street lined with pubs. We had booked to go to Angkor Wat the following morning so we decided not to get too drunk...... god know how many buckets later we stagger home at 3am after partying with a few friends, needing to be up at 8 for a whole day tour. Pub street is ace!

The next morning (still drunk) we met our tuk-tuk driver outside our hostel. He was our tour guide for the day, and what a day it was. The temples are simply amazing, we started at Angkor Wat and were blown away by the size of it and how its still standing after over 1000 years. It really is something we would recommend to anyone. We went to about 6 temples in total and explored the ruins. It was a long day but totally worth it, we have some great pics.

We got back to the hostel at 6 and got picked up by our hotel sleeper bus´for a 12 hour journey to the south of Cambodia.

Koh Rong 13-16 March

After 12 hours and not much sleep we got off the bus and were hounded instantly by tuk-tuk drivers. We had been told by many travellers to head to Koh Rong so thats what we did, we got a tuk-tuk to the port and then a speedboat to the island. The idea was to chill and have a few days and have a few days off the booze. When we got there we realised this would not be the case as its a party island with beach parties everyday!

The island itself is beautiful and made up of loads of different beaches and islands. The sand is one of the whitest we have seen. The strange thing about Koh Rong was that there were hardly any Cambodian people on the island, it was all run by westerners which we didnt like. There were a few Cambodians building loads of new accomodation and a few in the tiny village but that was about it. We still had a great time on the island and the highlight was the boat trip we did on the final day. We visted lots of secluded beaches and we also tried to get on the beach where the American version of the TV show Survivor was starting to be filmed, however we got chucked off the island by security guards! We went snorkelling which is best to go when you havent had loads of beer and rum which Hickey had! We ended the day with a bbq on the beach. It was a great day and a fun way to end our time in Koh Rong. Next day we spent the night in Sihanoukville and booked our 12 hour bus back to Bangkok. We promised ourselves we wouldnt drink and stuck by our word, even though 1 pub had happy hour on beer for 15p!!

We couldnt believe just how much Cambodia had changed since we last visited it 3 years ago, so much more commerical, too many people trying to rip you off and sooo much more expensive (apart from the beer which is cheaper than coke and water!) We still enjoyed it though Angkor Wat definately made the trip worth while.

Bangkok 17-18 March

12 hours actually became 16 hours! We arrived around midnight and had a bit of a walkabout before heading to bed. Next day was injection number 4 for Hickey, by now he was getting used to the hospitals in South East Asia, he even had his own patient card for the hospital in Bangkok! We decided not to hang about after the hospital and booked a last minute flight to Hat Yai ready for another bus to Pehentain Islands

Hat Yai 18-19 March

Hat Yai is completely different to anything we had experinced in South East Asia, for a start we were the only westerners in the whole of the town! It not touristy at all but was pretty cool, it was weird though, we got a bit frightened when we saw an elephant just waiting outside a shop in the middle of the street! We caught up on some sleep ready our trip back into Malaysia.

Perhentian Island 19 - 24 March

Wow we saved the best till last. Perhenatian islands are simply stunning. It took a mini bus, taxi and speedboat to finally get there but its was so worth it. We arrived on the last boat over and at first didnt recognise the place we had visited 3 years ago, a few more buildings had gone up but once we settled in it had the same chilled out vibe that we so loved last time.

The first night was a bit of a disaster though as there wasnt much accomodation to choose from - we stayed in a tiny hut and had the worst night sleep ever, we had ants in the bed and god knows what creatures trying to get into our hut! Next day we checked out asap and found a lush Chalet and booked that for the last 4 nights. If you are looking for somwhere to chill then this is the ialsnd, there is hardly anyone about during the day at times we were the only people in the sea. We chilled on the beach and booked a snorkelling island tour was turned out to be the best thing we had done in Asia. The snorkelling is incredible, the water is so clear and you see so many different fish all shapes, sizes and colours and the coral is lush too. We pretty much spent the rest of our time working on our tans on the beach, after 5 week in Asia you would think we would have learnt how to apply suncream properly...we both burnt!

The last night we met up a German and a Austalalian at the bar where we were going to have 1 drink. Again the buckets of vodka came out and 2 hours later Hickey couldnt get up off the floor...standard.

We both agreed Perhentian Islands was our favourite part of the trip, we flew back to KL for the night and then back to Heathrow for the night.

Heathrow 25 March

Micky Hickey, KK and Han Ban met us at Heathrow and we went to the pub where a 72 year old bloke decided to join us and start singing to us, to be fair he was pretty good and it was great to catch up with peeps, however London was far too old, off to Brazil we go!!