Hello we're in Siem Reap now and have found a place with free internet so I can waffle away again now.
Right, after our eventful night in Ho Chi Minh we took a trip on the Mekong Delta with Sinh Cafe the next day. Was a bit touristy but still really fun. We got to see how lots of different things like coconut candy and rice paper were made and had lots of free samples (mike ate 3 coconut candies and spat each one out deciding that he didn't like them, only to try and eat another one a few minutes later). There were also lots of free cups of tea and some very strange fruit that tasted bit like smelly feet. Highlight was probably riding around in a horse drawn carriage (don't know what this had to do with the local people or the way of life in the mekong as we didn't see any locals doing this, but they gave us all silly hats to wear so it was ok) or going down the river in a little rowing boat.
At 6.30 the following morning we got on the bus to Phnom Penh which was pretty uneventful,and checked into Tat Guesthouse which is brilliant. $7 for a double room with ensuite and the staff were so lovely and friendly. And they have a rooftop bit with hammocks.
We checked in and went off to see the Royal Palace which was a bit off a mug off as was the same price as our room, each. Was very pretty though, lots of pagodas and temples and we saw some really expensive stuff that had been donated by the royal family. Wandered about a bit and found D's Bookshop which was so lovely, i think i want to run a second hand bookshop when I'm older. Bought too many books. Then found another lil gem that had apparently just opened: it's a silk shop that also serves coffee and beer and they have loads of big cushions on the floor and jugs of beer for $3, so we stayed there for a bit. Think I would incorporate something like that into my bookshop.
Had dinner at the guesthouse with Paul and Sarah who had been eating Happy Pizza all day, and then lay in the hammocks and watched Borat. Lovely day.
Sunday we did the horrible stuff. Got up early and walked to Toul Sleng Genocide Museum to watch he film they show at 10am. We hired a guide who walked us round and explained everything. She was 8 when the Khmer Rouge took over and was sent to a labour camp near the Vietnamese border with her family. Her father was shot as he used to be in the army. Two of her brothers died there. One night she and he mother escaped and walked for a week to cross the border to Vietnam, where they lived until the 1980s. After that we went to the Killing Fields. I don't really want to write anything else about it as I don't think I could do it justice.
We had a really lovely tuk tuk driver that I think also works at Tat Guesthouse. He drove us about all day and then took us to the Russian Market where I bought far too many kramars and silk things... and an ipod!! It cost $40 and looks just like the little square ipod nanos, except the screen is a bit wonky. And the software on it is nothing like and ipod. But it's brilliant I'm so pleased with it. it even has a speaker on the back so in some ways (not many) it's better than a real ipod!
That cheered me up but apart from that we were both pretty low all day and i was quite glad to go to bed.
Monday was when I wrote my other posts, we bummed about on the internet until it was time to catch our bus to Siem Reap. We piled into a little mini bus thinking it would drop us at a bus station but it never did so we were a bit squashed the whole way. And the roads are pretty bad. Apparently they've got better recently, but there were some bits which were very bumpy and our driver was a bit of a loony. The views were amazing though, there is a lot more jungle here than Vietnam (obviously...) and most of the houses are on stilts for when the rivers flood in the rainy season. There were loads of temples and really ornate pagodas that looked beautiful and I'm sure if they were somewhere else would have loads of tourists, but here they are just peaking out of the jungle and look like no one from outside ever sees them.
Had a bit of a problem about an hour from Siem Reap, our driver started driving really slowly and meandering on and off the road. Eventually he stopped and explained to us in broken English that one of the brake disks had broken. ah. we all got off the bus and it was getting dark and huge bugs were flying into us. There was a thunder storm going on a few miles away and the lightening kept lighting up the clouds. The driver started to take the wheel apart and mike assisted by holding the torch for him. About 1/4 of the disk had come off but after fiddling with it for about 20 minutes the driver decided it would be fine if he drove slowly (read not quite as terribly as before) so we all piled back in and off we set.
Actually wasn't too bad, after a little while they swapped our bus for one with seats that reclined almost all the way back.
Got into Siem Reap and came to the Siem Reap hostel after being recommended it by loads of people. It seems really nice and clean and there are loads of good areas for lounging about in hammocks, but is very expensive $8 a night for a dorm bed without breakfast. But we're going to stay here as we're too poor to go out and do stuff and it's nice for bumming around. and free internet. The tuk tuk driver who brought us here seemed really nice him so we 'booked' him for a temples tour today. Got up at 4.30am to meet him outside at 5am. He drove us to Angkor Wat to watch the sunrise which was very pretty but we got a bit bored so while everyone else was watching we went off and explored. It was brilliant as we had the whole place to ourselves, there was NO ONE else around. We climbed all over it and took loads of photos and had a lovely time. We did the 'small tour' which covered all the main ones and the one where bits from tomb raider were filmed and the trees are part of the temples. At Angkor Thom we did an elephant ride which was a really bad idea. They're mentioned in Lonely Planet so we though they would be ok and well treated but it was $15 which is a mug off for a 10 minute ride and the bloke riding it kept hitting the elephant with a stick with a nail on the end and making it bleed. We were the 2nd ride of the day and there was already quite a bit of blood on it's head so it must be really bad later in the day.
the Bayon was my favourite temple and before 9am there are hardly any other tourists. There are lots of towers with heads carved onto them and it just looks really cool. Ta Keo was the worst. It is so high up and the steps are stupidly steep. I'm not great with heights and was pretty scared the whole way up and down. The whole day was just really good, temples are good.
We got back at about 12pm but felt like we'd had a whole day as we got up so early. Don't think we've really done much since. Lay in hammocks, wondered around town and seen where sells cheap beer, that's about it.
Plan for the next few days: staying in Siem Reap tonight (28/4) and tomorrow (29/4) trying to spend as little money as possible and then catching bus at 8am on 30/4 to Bangkok which should get in about 5.30pm (and costs $10). Spending 1 night in a hostel somewhere and then on 1/5 we check into the royal hotel and start the whole organised tour. easy. xx
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