Cambodi-YA! (Phnom Penh)

A "quiet" day in Phnom Penh

View of Phnom Penh from a rooftop

 

Chinese New Year Wishes

We ran out of money- this was our last meal in Cambodia

 

Cambodi-YA! (Siem Reap and Angkor World Heritage)

Ta Prohm

Some ladies doing... Something at Angkor Wat

 

Angkor Tom

Angkor Wat at Sunrise

First Night in Cambodia- so cozy.

Angkor Tom

 

 

 

We packed up and began to head off to Cambodia. We were sad to leave our little paradise of islands but also ready for a change of pace from laying on a different beach each day and partying at night. I had to admit that I was happy to get some historical value to our trip. We traveled all day long- a ferry, a bus, 2 airplanes, and a taxi to get to Siem Reap. We finally arrived at about 9pm at night and were sad to find out that the 2 triple rooms we had reserved for 2 nights had been given away. With broken English, the man at the desk struggled to find us each a bed for the night in the "dorms". The dorms were, in fact, a bunch of mattresses on the ground, two by two of a converted barn. Makeshift clotheslines at about neck height zigzagged across the room to have mosquito netting around each mattress. Sadly, there were 5 beds for 6 people. The man ran off to find another bed in a different dorm for me. I volunteered to be the one to split up from the group as I was in the highest spirit at that time. He came back and had me follow him around the massive hostel looking for a bed. Finally, we found one... outside. Suffice to say, I slept on a nice double bed, beside a family of Cambodians with a bug net on a broken bamboo porch. I didn't mind especially because I knew we would be waking up at 4:30am to watch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Also, I only had to pay $1US for my bed that night! Success!

So, we woke up very very early. We had hired a taxi driver for the whole day for $45. He was going to take us around to all the temples and sites from 5am to 7pm- pretty sweet deal if you ask me! We got to Angkor Wat and all shuffled down the dark path with our cellphones as flashlights. We were really surprised to see how many people were coming to do the same thing... I mean it was SO early! And yet, the sun rose behind the temple and it was fantastic. We snapped a few pictures and took the opportunity to wander about the temple before everyone was finished taking their sunrise pictures- the temple was pratically empty. We then ate some food at a really, really terrible restaurant and went to the next stop- Angkor Tom and the Elephant Wall. Jenny and I started feeling pretty ill at this point so we found some rocks and slept on them for about half an hour to be awoken to a little kid standing over us asking to buy postcards. I was starting to feel a bit better and were brought to the last stop- Ta Prohm which is the tree temple that you probably know from Tomb Raider. Jenny at that point got violently ill and we had to cut our day short and go back to the hostel. She had a pretty serious bout of food poisoning and the rest of us were pretty queezy from the food too. We had been in the temples for about 7 hours at that point anyway. We then relaxed until supper time when we met up with two of our friends from Gwangju. We had a meal at one of Angelina Jolie's favourite local restaurants and went to a live music bar. 3 of us started feeling a bit queezy again so we went home marginally early (midnight). The next day we took an 8 hour bus to Phnom Penh. I slept most of the way, took gravol and ate a baguette in fear of upsetting my stomach. By the time we arrived in Phnom Penh though I was quite healed.

Thai Islands (Koh Phi Phi)

Koh Phi Phi

Panoramic on the beach

The islands had little kittens running around everywhere or sleeping on stairs- you actually had to look where you were stepping. Here's one lil' guy that hung out by our room the whoel 3 days.

We took a lot of boats

An island off of Koh Phi Phi

Not a bad view. This was comng up to the beach that was filmed in "The Beach" with Leo DiCaprio.

Koh Phi Phi was like an island version of Bangkok. It was cramped, lively, and full of fun things to do. The price of accomodations was significantly higher here and we found ourselves pushing together 3 twin beds and the 6 of us sharing them to save on cash. We made some new friends here and by this time were happy and comfortable to split up when we wanted to. One day, Tristan and I braved the mountain and hiked up to a view point in our flip flops at sunset. The food waws phenomenal and I finally got a chance to do some snorkeling off a private beach. Jamie scoped out a good spot for me and left me to roam for about an hour longer than anyone else wanted to stay swimming around.

 

Thai Islands (Krabi, Aonang, Railei)

Krabi/ Aonang Beach

Aonang Beach

After a few days in Koh Tao, we felt it was time to wind down a little bit... give our livers a rest and all. We took about 3 ferrys and 2 buses to get to Krabi. It was still a tourist destination but with an older crowd. We had some excellent food there, in particular, the Indian food was phenomenal. On the second day we hired a boat for the day where he took us to Railei beach. Railei may have been the most beautiful beach we saw. We then were brought to some cliffs where most of us scrambled up a rope from the water, climbed about 10 feet and jumped off. Tristan made it about 15 or 20 feet but being in a bikini and being scared and weak and all I didn't make it very high up. We were then brought to a tiny little islands where a Swedish couple had built a makeshift home and had lived there for the last 10 years. This is when I realized how burnt Jamie and I had gotten and soon enough we went back to our hostel at Aonang beach. We spent about 3 days in total in Aonang before leaving again to Koh Phi Phi.

View from our balcony in Aonang

 

 



Boat ride to Railei

Thai Islands (Koh Tao)

Koh Tao

We arrived in Koh Tao which was a weird little paradise for young travellers. I would guess that 80% of the tourists were under the age of 35 and were most certainly Abercrombie and Fitch models. During the days, people were scuba diving or laying on the beach and drinking from coconuts. At night, there was a huge party scene. Along the beaches were bars and restaurants with live entertainment of fire throwers and fire works. We managed to score a really great deal on a bungalow for the 5 of us to share which we quickly found out was due to half a dozens roosters that lived beneath it.



It was an incredibly fun and wild place to visit- Jamie and I had our first pub crawl experience which included a free shot at each bar and a mini beach bucket of a mixed drink. We went to a "Lady Boy" show which is essentially a drag show but way more convincing. Apparently it is a pretty big culture in Thailand. We were really impressed by the Beyonce impersonator.


Jamie and I not so impressed about being on a pub crawl

lady boy show

Travel day Jamie (post pub crawl night)

 

 

 

 

 



Bangkok, Thailand

Thailand was a whirlwind.

Travelling to Bangkok was relatively painless and we were so happy to step into a tropical airport after taking 2 buses and 2 airplanes. Our backpacks were temporarily lost but the airport security drove them straight to our hostel where we sat drinking Chang beers until 4 am until they arrived the first night. The very first thing we noticed about Thailand is the price difference. Our 20 minute cab ride was the equivalent of $4 and our beers were about $1. Once our other friends slowly trickled in we got some day passes on the Chao Praya River. We hopped on and off the boat to check out markets and get lunch. 

 We stopped to see the Reclining Buddha and some phenomenal temples.

We then found out that there had been a grenade thrown into the protests that were happening in Bangkok and decided that it would be a good time to head down to the islands to meet up with our last friend, Tristan. We waited for about an hour at our hostel for our taxi to the bus station and learned that ourtaxi had gotten in a car accident so another one was ordered. They brought us to a building and told us to wait on the sidewalk. After about another hour of waiting some buses turned up and with a lot of hand gestures we found the right one. Our poor friend Jenn had to use the bathroom desperately but was horrified to find that once the bus started moving the bathroom on the bus was an unlit cubby that someone had vomited all over and we had about 4 hours until the rest stop. She cried a little, put on her eye mask and her neck pillow and braved the next 4 hours like a champ. At about 2am we arrived... somewhere and waited in a little green room for 2 hours until a truck came to pick us up. We then drove to a pier where we sat for another 3 hours waiting for the sun to rise and take the ferry to Koh Tao. Finally, when we boarded the tiny little ferry we all sat on the deck and tried to keep up hopes that in only a 2 and a half hours we would have finally made it to a beautiful beach. The water was very tumultuous though and we were holding on pretty tight to the bars that we didn't even noticed when the ferry had turned around 40 minutes into the ride because of the fear of it capsizing. We got back to that pier and a boat load of unhappy people were yelling at poor Mr. Wat, the man who is in charge of the ferry. We tried to comfort him as he made arrangements for the people to stay overnight in a hotel or be brought to another pier where they were sending boats to Koh Tao. The truck that had come to pick up the people to go to the other pier had filled up so the 5 of us were put in the truck bed of a police officers jeep.
We got to the pier, had some drinks and lunch and waited for our next ferry. That ferry was... terrifying. We held on for dear life for 2 and a half hours while half of the passengers including some staff we vomiting into barf bags from sea sickness. Even Jamie's sunglasses flew off her face and into the ocean. We survived of course and got to our destination after some tears and jumping on to the land and practically kissed it for being alive. We estimated that the swells were about 8m high and were sure we were going to capsize into the Andaman Sea. We didn't and although we were salty from the giant waves crashing into us and the tears we were so happy to be in Koh Tao.