Holiday in Cambodia!

There's just a couple of things I was meant to say on my last blog so before I go into how much we like Cambodia, I shall just complete my last blog:
So the couple I was talking about, who we shared a taxi with from Singapore Train station - the reason I mentioned them was because I was meant to say how brave they were! The reason they had so many bags was because they had decided after meeting each other on an island off Bali just one year ago, that they were packing up and moving there. They'd spent 3 weeks or something in Thailand, where the bloke had got his diving instructor certificate and then they were bus-ing and train-ing it to this tiny island to live forever, if they could make it work! The girl told me that her father still cries when she speaks to him on the phone - no blinking wonder! If this trip has taught me one thing, it's that I could never do that!!
Second thing I was meant to mention: in some of the Singapore photos you'll see loads of fences all around the side of the road. Kev wanted me to mention that this was because the Grand Prix is about to take place there on the roads.
Third thing: Singapore has a Hooters bar and Kev was very pleased with his purchase of a lovely, classy T-shirt from there!
And finally, I was meant to mention we went for drinks with my friend Dan in a pub just round the corner from our hostel called the Prince of Wales. I was happy to see a lovely Welsh rugby shirt on the wall although the beer in there was exceptionally more expensive than the beer in the Prince of Wales pub in Cardiff. Needless to say the pub was far nicer than the one in the one in Cardiff too!!

So onto the next installment of the trip. We reluctantly left Singapore after getting up at about 3am to go to the airport and catch our early morning flight to Siem Reap in Cambodia. We were really tired and I was a bit nervous getting on the flight, but when we landed I was so pleasantly surprised - the airport was lovely and that was a good start for me!

We walked out of the airport to find the ever-so-lovely Mr Yin, who would be our Tuk Tuk driver for the next couple of days, holding a name card for us. He escorted us to our vehicle of choice and presented us with a cold cloth and ice cold ginger beer and I never knew how appreciative of those things I could be, it was great. The drive to the hostel was far more civilised than any Tuk Tuk ride we got on in Bangkok. We had time to take in some sights and I was happy to see that our driver wore a helmet (I do like a bit of health and safety).

Our hostel is the best hostel (note, the best hostel, not the best 'hotel' - I still prefer my hotels but I'm getting better!) we've stayed at. Although having said that, the air con here is so rubbish it's hard to sleep, but the ice cold swimming pool in the lobby makes up for it. Every night there have a movie on in the bar and there's just loads to do here when you can't be bothered to go out and about.

So the first day we dumped our bags and went for a wander in to the centre. It wasn't what I was expecting although it is hard to not feel guilty when kids beg. At one point Kev had turned around to take some photos and I found myself with a tiny little lad clinging to my arm and he really had a forceful grip for a nipper. Luckily for me, not so luckily for him, I was tired and hot and a little grumpy so I didn't have much trouble ignoring him and walking on until he let go, but today me and Kev are having pangs of guilt about all the little kids.

We walked a fair bit and by then it was the afternoon and I have discovered that I can't cope with afternoon heat in these countries! We got back to the hostel and laid down. Kev fell asleep, but Mr Chilli Crab that I ate yesterday decided to pay me a visit and get his own back on me so I found myself in a wee bit of pain and confined to the toilet!!! Our hostel room is so hot all the time and I couldn't cool down from our earlier walk so I got a bit emotional (no change there) and complained that I wasn't cut out for these hot countries. But the moment passed and the sun went down and the temperature began to drop to something a little more bearable.

That evening Mr Yin picked us up to take us on our first installment of Angkor, the ancient temples that Siem Reap is famous for. They date back to like the 11the or 12the century or something like that and this was one part of the trip that Kev was super looking forward to. So we were taken to the temple that everyone goes to for sunset. We climbed up and saw the temple and realised that the thing to do is to climb the ancient, I want to say 90 degree angled steps (but I'd probably be exaggerating by like a degree or so) and then sit at the top of the temple while the sun goes down. Ever health and safety conscience, I decided to stay at the bottom and watch the sun go down from there. Kev, however, was like a bat out of hell up those ruins. He took a few photos and then clambered back down to meet me and we wandered round to see some elephants - they scared me a bit and made me a little sad that the poor things we having to traipse around with tourists on their back. We'd considered doing an elephant jungle trek when we were in Thailand but had decided against it, when we saw these elephants in Cambodia we both realized we'd made the right decision not going on the trip in Thailand - we don't think we'd have like it.

Anyway, one of the elephants looked to me like it was picking up pace so I decided we should leave the vicinity swiftly and we wandered on a bit more. There we found some more steps to the top of the temple which we only, I want to say 80 degrees steep (but I'd probably be exaggerating by like a degree or so!) so I decided that if the elderly Japanese tourists that surrounded the temple could make it up and down those bad boys, surely I could do it too! So slowly, cautiously, examining every step before placing my foot on it, I hesitantly made my way to the top with Kev scrabbling behind me to catch me if I fell! And we made it to the top. However, to be honest, I was slightly disappointed up there - all you could see where the thousands of tourists who had also ventured to the top and we waiting for that all important, photo-opportunity, sunset.

We climbed back down and headed back to Mr Yim, who was sat patiently waiting for us. A short ride back to the hostel and we settled down to watch 'Mirrors' in the bar (the scary film with Keifer Suverland). We got an early night because we'd decided to begin our second day of temple visiting at 5am - that way we could see sunrise and be done and dusted before that awful afternoon heat - the deal was, if I could do 8 hours of temples, by 1pm I'd be back and the hostel and straight in that ice cold pool - oh yeah!

So 4am we awoke after spending a squashed night on a single bed. Basically in our room we've got a huge, huge double bed and one single bed. The problem is, the single bed, I would say is about 5cm closer to the fan and so ever so minutely cooler. So having tried to sleep in the big double bed, we chose to get up, move the mosquito net and squash into the single bed top and tales. The disadvantage of this single bed was of course that if you moved even slightly you might accidentally touch the other person's arm with your leg and their arm would be hot and that would make your leg even hotter - it was a tough call, but we decided being nearer the fan was the best option.

So anyway, we did get some sleep and then met Mr Yim at 5am as he had promised. We first of all went to Angkor Wat, I think the most famous temple, and there we joined the hundreds of camera-snapping tourists who had also turned out to watch the sunrise there. We walked around until about 6am, Kev wearing his shorts, me wearing a summery dress because it was already blinking boiling! I personally didn't get the big deal with Angkor Wat, yeah it was nice, but I've never really been one for ruins so I wasn't loving it, but Kev was happy to be at the oldest temple of them all and set about taking loads of really great photos.

We moved on then to Angkor Thom, which is an ancient walled city. In there we went to Bayon Temple which was a Buddhist temple (Angkor Wat was Hindu) and here I began to see the attraction to this place. This temple was absolutely beautiful and we both really enjoyed walking around this one.

We did a little more of Angkor Thom and then went to Ta Phnom (I think that's how it's spelt anyway) and it was here that they filmed tomb raider apparently. This temple is the one that you see in all the pictures and is amazing. It's so weird because all the trees have grown through it, pushing the rocks out of place and making the most surreal, fantasy type setting. It's hard to do this place justice with a camera, everywhere you look you want to take a photo, it's beautiful.

So we had a really good temple viewing session. The hardest thing was at the entrance to every temple you have to fight your way through loads of little kids who are all trying to sell you postcards or bracelets or something. It's difficult because they're so persistent and they're clever in the way they have learned how to get you to speak to them - they'll say 'where you from?' and it's harder to say 'no thank you' to that question, so you end up saying 'UK' and then they say 'UK, capital London, you have 65 million people there, if you buy, you buy from me, if you don't buy you make me cry, what's your name?' and before you know it you've given them a fake name and then your doomed! One little boy made me smile when he came up to me offering me bracelets 'four for one million dollars, lady' he said - I laughed and said no thank you 'OK!' he said, '4 for 1 dollar' - now that is a swift reduction in price, but I still didn't want them! 'OK! 5 for 1 dollar' - if only these sales techniques were adopted in the UK! And finally, the one little girl that I'm now wishing I gave a dollar too told me I looked 19 and that I was very beautiful - she was my favourite! But the thing is you find yourself automatically saying no to everyone because if you say yes to one then you'd be swarmed, but on reflection, I think we should maybe have just given away a few dollars - it's not much to us. Yesterday, when we were walking up to the temple for Sunset we went through the line of security guards and showed our tickets before we walked up the hill to the temple and it's great because of course, none of the kids can get through the security guards, so you're left in peace. But along that path was a lady sitting by the side with a young son in her arms who was horrendously disfigured, like elephantitus or something. It was a real shock and you find yourself thinking 'oh god, how come she's allowed in here!' You know, you don't want to be reminded of the reality of life here while you're enjoying your privileged view of beautiful temples - it's something that hit me and made me realise how lucky we are.

This afternoon, we came back to the hostel and chilled out in the pool for most of the afternoon, which was so relaxing. Then we went into the centre for dinner. We saw another woman holding a disabled son on the street and a man with no legs selling books and then there was a band playing on the side of the road and as we walked past, one of the men waved half an arm at me and smiled a really friendly smile - it's hard, well, hard for us to see, but I guess it's harder for them eh! Seeing all the little kids as well does get to you, more than I thought it would really as I'm not the most maternal person in the world. But around by the temples, and probably a lot of them in the centre, don't get to go to school. The problem is though that you never know who is genuine and who isn't - yesterday this woman holding a baby came up to us holding an empty bottle for the baby and begging us to buy him one meal - she was totally scamming the tourists though, you could just tell with her. There's so many tourists here and the whole place seems absolutely geared up for us with bars and restaurants. We sat in a restaurant this evening and had dinner and a drink and sat looking around at all the locals who can't even go to these places even though it's their home - it seems wrong that tourists have taken over but I suppose it's a good thing for their economy.

Anyway, I'm sounding a bit stupid going on and I'm probably not getting what I mean across or I'm probably sounding patronising to the people here or something, but if I am, I don't mean to be. The people here are so friendly and helpful and we've really really enjoyed our time in Siem Reap. We're heading on a bus to Phnom Pehn tomorrow, the Capital city, and I've heard the beggars are much worse there, so I think that's going to be horrible but we're only there one night and we're in a really nice hotel - see what I mean, I don't want to be reminded of reality, just give me my air con and swimming pool! Kev really wants to go to the killing fields and that school where everyone got killed in the 70s - I'm not sure if I'm going to go yet, not sure if I need to see that kind of stuff to know that bad things happened here. We'll see.

So, sorry if I ended that on a downer. Just to clarify - we're both in really good moods and have had a great time here, oh, and fear not, my Cambodia ring was bought at approximately 7pm this evening - that's 4 rings now so the mission continues.

Hope everyone else is good, keep us up to date with the gossip.
Speak to you all soon xxxx