Cambodia - home to the 8th wonder of the world ... and the sex tourist

When we booked our 11 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Cambodia no one explained that 3 1/2 hours of that time would be spent crossing the border!

Our first hold up was caused by us overstaying our Thai visa by 1 day, having to pay 1000 bhat fine and sign our "Conviction for criminal offence in the Kingdon of Thailand" issued by the Thai police authority (worth it for one last party Bangkok style ... and we got to keep a copy of the certificate for the downstairs toilet!)

Our second was that - depite the HUGE sign as we left Thailand stating that except for the $25 fee for the Cambodian visa no money should change hands - we had to fight everyone in a uniform who wanted 100 bhat either for the visa form, the quarantine cetificate, or the entry stamp.

Our third hurdle was that each of these were issued in different buildings and it was hard to know where to go as it's difficult to understand people when they are shouting at you!

Our fourth and final hurdle was the Cambodian's themselves. Now we'd heard that they were all lovely, smiling, friendly people but we'd also been warned that their gene-pool had been shall we say thinned out a little (see below) even so we were still a little surprised when it took 3 cashiers, a calculator and 4 attempts to complete a simple currency exchange !

But we eventually made it through and despite the bus breaking down 2 hours outside Siem Reap we still made it in good time (13 hours!).

Siem Reap is home to the temples of Angkor Watt (the 8th wonder of the ancient world - a bit confusing as we thought there were only 7) and the sex tourist. Side by side they make for an odd town - with young children gyrating outside bars by night and fat old men escorting their Cambodian "girlfriends" around the temples in the day.

On our second night we hooked up with our friend Brian who showed us around some bars and then showed us round...some more bars. At this point we realised if we were going to see any of the temples we were going to have to go it alone! (once we'd finished our drinks of course)

We bought a 3 day ticket and spent the first afternoon being driven around by a tuk tuk checking out various temples including the one where the Tomb Radier film was shot...

...Bayon (our favourite)...

... and Angkor Watt.

 

Matt found it easy to tell when Charlotte had had enough for one day as she became more interested in pointing out the sex tourists than the sculptures so we called it a day.

That night our American friends Lex and Penny, who we'd met in Indonesia, arrived. So the next day we all got up and headed back to Angkor Watt for sunrise. Sadly when Matt asked Charlotte if she's charged the cameras and she said "yes" what she should have said was "no" so the photo below is courtesy of Lex and Penny - thanks guys!!

The rest of the day was devoted to checking out yet more temples and statues !

To ensure we didn't suffer temple overload we spent the following day relaxing at Aqua - a pool outside of town which happened to be having it's 2nd year birthday party - unusual of us to find a party, but we did it again!

We then hit a roof-top skate ramp (?) for sunset where some of the boys we were with showed off their skills and Charlotte wowed the crowd with her "retard 180" move, ruining her dress in the process.

We returned for the 3rd and final day of our temple tour once again with Lex and Penny in tow... but this time without the tuk tuk. When Charlotte agreed to Matt's suggestion that we hire a tandem bike she thought he was joking. And when Charlotte suggested that we wear matching outfits it was a surprise to both of us when we went through with it

and even more so when Cool Cat Lex and Hot Stuff Penny joined us!!

We had such a laugh - and it turns out that Cambodian people find a tandem equally hilarious and curious all at once.

Our last night with Lex and Penny was great and Charlotte and Penny were let off the leash by the boys

Well maybe not let-off more like thrown-off...

Not sure that was the best idea as neither could get out of bed the next day!

After 10 days of Siem Reap we headed for the capital city Phenom Pem. On the bus on the way we sat next to two aussie guys : Ian - on his way to represent Oz in the world beer ping pong championships in Las Vegas and Ben - on his way back to the bar he owned in Otres beach. This is how the conversation started - "Hey, you guys aren't the couple we saw on a tandem bike yesterday. That's love. Next you'll be sharing a kayak. Then you have to marry" ...

then to Matt - "you pussy!"

Five hours later when we knew everything about each other we arrived in Phnom Phen. The best way we can describe it is that it makes the Ping-Pong Show area of Bangkok look like the Vatican. If the apocolypse came and only deviant people and under-aged hookers surrounded by piles of rubbish and bars with blacked out windows were left then Phnom Pen would be the capital of the new world.

After reading a menu we decided to skip dinner...

...and head back to the hostel after 30 mins of walking about town. That night we paid an extra $20 for our Vietnamese visas to be processed in 24 hours, booked to go to the shooting range and see the killing fields the next day and then hid under the covers!

The next day turned out to be one of Matt's favourites. We were taken to a shooting range where Matt got to tick one of the things off his "black list" - fire an automatic weapon - don't ask what else is on the list - it's pretty dark!

We then went to the killing fields - and were relieved that the gun had come first ! It was by far the most sobering excursion we've been on. It was one of 200 camps across Cambodia where under Pol Pot the Khmer Rouge killed nearly 3 million of the 8 million people who lived in Cambodia between 1975-1979 including all the teachers, educated citizens and even those who wore glasses....hence the "gene pool" issues we mentioned earlier.

After seeing these "attractions" there wasn't much else to keep us in Phnom Penn so we hit the road and headed to Otres beach. When we arrived we took Ben up on his suggestion and our first stop was his bar "Oocha" - and there we stayed !! Dave, Dave and Ben own the bar and run it with Chef Chow and Gill or "Gill-doh" (Dave's girlfriend). It's difficult to put into words how insane these boys (and their customers) are or how much fun we had there, these photos may give you some idea but believe us it 'aint even the half of it,  let us just say that the beer-bong-egg-tazer has gone down in local legend....

Needless to say we found it hard to leave, but after 10 days of partying, beer-bonging, playing stone paper scissors, spinning the "Wheel Of Misfortune" & tazering Charlotte put her foot down and we finally left - but not without one last night of madness which resulted in Dave spray painting our mate Ed 2 hours before he had to catch the 12 hour bus to Siem Reap - we think this is how James Cameron may have started out !!

Avatar meets Oocha.... (funniest thing we've seen so far!)

Last stop in Cambodia was Kampot a beautiful chilled out village near the Vietnamese border and a much needed few days of relaxing by the river before our journey to Saigon.....but not before checking out one last Cambodian sunset on a river cruise.

Watch this space for Vietnam, they love Western invaders....errr we mean visitors, right ?!?

Matt's birthday week - older but not wiser (mum's skip this one, the next will be cultural we promise)

We arrived in Bangkok from Loas at 6am unsure whether we would be able to reach our hotel from the bus station because Bangkok was still flooded. Thankfully the road was open. Unfortunately the booking office which had messed up our hotel reservation wasn't. We were then "forced" to "wait" in the 24 hour bar in front of our hotel from 6.30am until 10.30am until the situation could be rectified - and so Matt's birthday week began!

We then chilled for a couple of days and eagerly awaited the arrival of Sean (Bear Man Pig - our new friend we met in India) and Jukkis ( the Mighty Finn, or Horn Dog as Charlotte re-named him - Matt's friend from Finland) who were joining us to celebrate Matt's birthday sexy-party-time-Bangkok style

Charlotte woke Matt up on his birthday and gave him his presents. A slightly eclectic mix of a tracksuit, some valium (for bus journeys only), a mosquito zapper (for use on mosquitos only) and a stun gun (for use on no-one!). We then chilled by the pool for the day, had some food, collected our Myanmar visas and then with Sean and the newly arrived Mighty Finn in tow we were ready to go.

We hooked up with Brian (our friend from the deep South of USA), his Thai friend Titicana, our new friends Sefano, and Laura and hit down town Bangkok. Now, when Brian told us we would be hooking up with his Thai friend for Matt's birthday - "but hey ya'all it aint like that" we didn't completely believe him. Turns out he was right (we think no money changed hands!). She was wicked (and beautiful) and drove us round Bangkok all night in her SUV.

We hit some cool bars and clubs and with only a few minor incidents which for Sean's privacy we won't repeat here the night went really well ...

(until Charlotte had to carry the birthday boy home).

The next morning Jukkis and Sean joined us on the bus south to Kho Chang Island for a week to hook up with Suzie (Charlotte's long suffering friend from the UK). With only a few hours sleep and an early morning evacuation from our hostel (which we won't discuss here - love you Sean) the 5 hour bus journey could not have been funnier. For us. For the first hour! The next four hours we never discuss - let's just say Matt had to do a lot of grovelling to Charlotte for several days after.

Kho Chang was perfect. We shared a taxi from the port to Lonely Beach with Nate and Elena and ended up hanging with them for the week.

Nate was a beautifully crazy American who we loved from the moment he opened his mouth and Elana was a hot Russian who the boys "loved" before she even opened hers! We checked in to our $5 a night huts (not the 4* bungalows which Suzie had been promised) and awaited her reaction when she arrived the following day.

To soften the accomodation blow (which she actually didn't bat an eyelid at - except maybe the cold showers!) and welcome Suzie to the group the boys spent the day on the beach rehearsing songs (which mainly involved serenading Elena or any other girl who walked by).

By the time Suzie arrived the boys were fully rehursed. They had even drawn a crowd and been invited to perform at an open mic night in town that night. So that was Suzie's welcome to backpacking - beer on the beach being seranaded by Jukkis and Sean singing Robbie Williams, a perfect sunset and then off to an open mic guitar night. And it only got better from there!

The next 5 days were up there with the best we've had since we've been away. Chilling on the beach in the day with Sean and Jukkis on the guitar and also Ginge, Delly & Elliott who were 3 british lads that we had previously encountered in Pai, swimming in the sea, volley ball and cocktails at sunset, then back to the huts for a chillout before hitting various bars.

No one can be sure which night the tazer was brought out from the hut at 4am, but everyone in our huts checked out the next day so we could probably find out quite easily! And so the week began to degenerate!

We were only mildly concerned when one day Nate (now called Nate Dog) ate a bag of mushrooms and hired a kyak to go plastic fishing (?) in 32 degree heat - but he was a grown man so we watched as he fell off the kayak 3 times before rowing towards the horizon!

Inspired by his brave actions the rest of that day/night was somewhat of a blur..

Charlotte and Matt were more than mildly surprised when at one point Susy stood up in the middle of a group of people she'd just met, took her clothes off and ran into the sea in front of a beach full of people. Don't worry she wasn't alone, Matt and Charlotte, Jukkis and Nate dog all found themselves at one with nature that night. And lets just say Matt and Jukkis are closer now than they've ever been and Matt was only mildly annoyed when Charlotte couldn't remember where she buried their money and new camera in the sand! Or find her clothes. Matt's brother has kindly pointed out since that it's always the "middle aged" people who go naked swimming!!

After a week Suzie (with her first tattoo) and Charlotte left Kho Chang for one last night in Bangkok, Jukkis followed his penis to Hong Kong and Matt stayed on the Island with Sean, Elliot, Ginge & Delly for one last night - turns out the best open mic night yet! Charlotte and Suzie will not be discussing their night in Bangkok with anyone (except maybe the police if we come across a certain group of Aussie men again or suzie's camera!) and Matt has remained tight lipped about his night off the leash! Thanks to Jukkis, Sean and Suzie for coming and spending a beautiful week with us, but thankfully birthdays only come around once a year so our wallets and our livers can have a rest, we're off to Cambodia next - to see some children!

To the Mekong and beyond !!!!!

Having said goodbye to all our new friends in Pai and getting the WORST passport photos ever taken for our Laos visas (see previous blog entry for proof !) we jumped on the overnight minibus to take us to the Thai / Laos border. After approximately 3 hours sleep we were woken up and herded on to a small river taxi to make the short trip across the Mekong between the two countries, where after passing through immigration and suffering the indignation of having to hand over the aforementioned photos we found ourselves in Laos, a country so laid-back it makes Rhyll look like New York.

The next 2 days were spent on a slow boat travelling down the Mekong river towards Luang Prabang. This started off as a fun experience but soon deteriorated into the equivalent of a never-ending coach journey on the M4 but with better scenery.

At one point Charlotte was tempted to jump overboard and start swimming as she was adamant that this would be a faster method of getting to our destination.

Along the way we stopped off at Pak Beng where we had our first experiences of Laotian food and the craziness that seems to infect all the locals in the form of a group of 40+ women walking up the street whooping & giggling like they had all been at the mushroom shakes !

After 2 butt-aching days we disembarked from the slow boat in Luang Prabang which turned out to be a kind of middle-aged French peoples holiday resort, complete with bistros & creperies, surrounded by buddhist temples.

Which was all very nice but  once we'd been there a day we'd seen most of it so we jumped in a minivan which was only slightly more crowded than the slowboat and set off for Vang Vieng which has achieved legendary status on the traveler trail as the home of "tubing" but more about that later....

Vang Vieng was surrounded by beautiful scenery and we managed to get ourselves a hut right on the river

Even if we did have to cross the worlds most rickety bridge to reach it !

With this done we hired a moped and set off to see some of the local scenery which included the biggest waterfall we've seen to date

Before heading back into town to watch an amazing sunset and laugh at all the people flailing drunkenly down the river in the darkness at the end of their tubing experience safe in the knowledge that as we were both older & wiser than the majority of travelers in town that definitely would not be us

That evening we met another couple from England and arranged to go "tubing" with them the following day. For those who don't know tubing involves hiring a large inner tube in town and then being driven 4 kilometers up stream where you plop yourself in the river and float back into town stopping off at the various riverside bars along the way - which should take about 3 hours. Sounds like a recipe for disaster (and in Matts brothers case actually was....but that's another story), but as previously stated we are a bit older and therefore a bit more responsible so we knew we'd be ok.

Therefore the next morning we found ourselves crossing yet another rickety bridge on our way to the first bar at the start of the tubing run

Things got off to an ominous start when as we crossed the threshold of the bar we had our heads held back with our mouths open whilst staff members poured a large quantity of Laotian whisky down our throats......mmmm whisky breakfast. As soon as we'd got over the shock of this we sat down with our new friends Luke & Rachel and had a few warm up beers

Once we'd got the first 4 or 5 beers inside us to settle our stomachs after our whisky treat we thought  2 hours was probably long enough for the first bar so only stumbling slightly we jumped in the river, Charlotte banging her ass on the riverbed as she did so (grace & poise baby, grace & poise) and began "tubing".....

...unfortunately within 25 meters we "somehow" found ourselves being towed into the next bar (which you can see in the video HERE) where we were yet again forced to drink a large shot of Laotian whisky meaning that we "had" to buy a bucket of rum & pineapple to get rid of the taste and as it was 2 for 1 it meant that we accidentally ended up with a bucket each ! This was a good thing however as it gave both of us the courage to jump off the high dive board

With Matt insisting that he do it with his Chelsea flag

(little tip for you all from Matt - don't do this whilst suffering with piles as it's bloody painful when you land !)

Upon checking our watches we realised that yet another 2 hours had passed and we were still only 25 meters from our start point. Shit ! So it was back in the tubes again, this time swaying considerably as we did so, and off down the river we went determined to make it past the next bar....which we duly did, Yay us ! Alas the next bar was too much of a temptation so we found oursleves being lassoed and dragged into shore again with Matt managing to lose his sunglasses in the process by falling off the ladder while attempting to get out of the river (it's alright though because he "found" another pair on the floor almost immediately)

By this time we were acting like the kind of people you want to have out there in the world representing the UK

But at least they didn't make us drink anymore of that lovely whisky.

Charlotte & Rachel then decided to entertain Luke & Matt, and therefore the whole bar, by putting on a dance show....not that kind of show ! It was in fact a perfect demonstration of "drunken English chicks dancing to Michael Jackson" and was highly appreciated, if not fully understood, by all present.....but you don't have to take our word for it, check out the youtube video HERE

It was now 17:40 meaning that we had 20 minutes to return our innertubes or risk losing our deposit (a whopping $4 !) so it was back in the tubes. By this point we were using the "fall in the river and hang on for dear life" method.

We soon realised that this was a bad idea as the sun rapidly disappeared and we found ourselves completely drunk, floating in near darkness in freezing cold water on a river which seemed to have suddenly sped up and developed lots of whirlpools and rocks for us to crash into ! After an hour of flailing drunkenly in the darkness and shrieking at each other (well mostly it was Charlotte doing the shrieking) we decided to give up and pull in at the next bar/hotel where we could get a rickshaw to take us back into town. Tubing had beaten us. Thank god we're "older & wiser" eh.

The next morning we decided that we'd have another crack at tubing but this time we'd go early and ensure that we didn't stop at all the bars so we could finish it ! This started badly when we suddenly realised that we'd been in the first bar for 2 hours again.....but then Matt put his foot down and insisted that we get going.

From this point it was pretty much plain sailing, except for when the staff at the bar where we stopped for lunch decided to put on an impromptu cock-fight for us

Those of you who know Charlotte well may be surprised to learn that instead of being horrified by this she stood up and started shouting "COCK-FIGHT ! COCK-FIGHT !"......or on second thoughts maybe you won't be. This minor incident aside it was a much more sedate day and we had a great time floating down the river together AND more importantly got our tubes back in time to reclaim our deposits.

Next up on our list of activities was something that we had been watching take place for the last few days - hot air ballooning, something which neither of us had tried. Our first attempt was a failure when the safety crew (yes they had a saftey crew. Amazing !) said it was too windy, therefore the next mornng just before sunrise we found ourselves standing next to a rapidly inflating giant balloon which we would be entrusting our lives too

We were both a bit nervous at take off which I think you can see here with Matts worried look and Charlottes maniacal laughter

But soon we were enjoying floating above the Laotian countryside....this was until the point of landing when the pilot (we assumed he was the pilot because he had a jumpsuit saying so) seemed to have no idea what to do and instead of landing at our designated site crash landed in a local farmers field !

Which seemed to amuse the locals no end....

.....the farmer not so much though. However we survived unscathed and can now say that we have been in an "air crash".

The following day we bid farewell to yet another set of friends and hopped on a bus to Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. Vientiane is not your typical capital city, for starters you'd have no idea that you'd left the "countryside" and entered an "urban" area until someone pointed it out to you and then when we reached the city centre we found that it was basically 4 streets that intersected. In fact the only things we can really report are that it has a bowling alley (where Charlotte whipped Matt - Check out her strike !)

A mini Arc de Triomph built out of concrete donated by the Americans for a runway and described by the Laotian heritage sign as

And you can watch some beautiful sunsets over the Mekong (ok we know we're obsessed with sunsets)

So after spending a fun filled 10 days in Laos we were ready to head back into Thailand to rendezvous with Sean, Jukkis & Susy for sexy-party-time Bangkok style on Matt's birthday......