Sorry its a late post- We updated recently from Cambodia to only realise it didn't upload or save. Apologies if its a brief update, connection isn't great out here!!
Ho Chi Minh City
We only had two days here, our first full day we spent exploring the city and visiting the war remnants museum, this is probably the most graphic and moving of the war museums we have visited. However very biased to the Americans, not covering there side of the story. It was definitely a tear jerker, realising the devastation that occurred during this terrible time. Unfortunately we didn't have more time here, our schedule required us to move on!
Next stop...Pnomh Penh
We spent 3 days here, mainly visiting the Killing fields and s21 genocide museum- You hire a tuk tuk driver to take you to these places- our first stop was the killing fields. It was $6 for an audio tour- which was well worth it. The Killing fields are in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during 1975 to 1979 immediately after the end of the Cambodian civil war. Innocent people were taken from their homes with the promise of better jobs and provision for their families. Mothers, fathers, cousins, aunties, grandparents and children were brought here to be tortured and executed. There are a number of mass graves , the audio tour takes you around the sight telling a moving story about the regime and survival stories of the people under pol pots ruling. All in all extremely upsetting, it was worth visiting. We are glad we had the opportunity to show our respects to the people who were killed during that time.
From here we went to S21. This is a former high school which was used as the notorious security prison 21 (S21) by the Khmer rouge regime between 1975- 1979. S21 was only one of at least 150 execution centers in the country, as many as 20,000 prisoners there were killed. No audio tour here and slight lack of information which meant we couldn't fully comprehend what went on here. Some of the main leaders under the Khmer rouge still haven't been correctly sentenced, though they have been detained, they are not expected to receive full liability until as late as 2014- some of them in their 90's!!
Siem Reap
Of course here we did the famous Angkor Wat sunrise- despite getting up at 4am to get in the freezing cold tuk tuk it was a spectacular sight and well worth it. You have to get there early to avoid the flocks of people and traveling to get the best view. We had hired our own tuk tuk driver called 'BATMAN' for this day- lovely guy, genuine gentleman. After Angkor Wat he took us to the surrounding temples, giving us brief history on each one. He kept stopping to show us different sights and historic buildings. By around mid day, as you can imagine we were very tired having gotten up so early, he took us back for a power nap and offered to come and collect us late that afternoon to visit the silk farm free of charge. The silk farm was great. We got a little tour and got to see how they nurture the silk worms and collected the silk once ready. This place was really incredible, catering for jobless women mainly, training them up yearly to create such beautiful, crafted hand made silk form wooden manual machines- skilful work!
.....Moving on to Thailand
Krabi- Visited 1 night only - not so much to see here, not really an island, just the main port for traveling to islands!
Stayed in a really cool hostel called 'Pak up' all the dorms were school subjects, they had a playground and roof top bar which was great to meet people and getting involved in drinking games. The following day we boarded the long tail boat to Railey beach- quite a small beach, lots of tourists! We stayed in a hill top shack , sharing with lots of monkeys trying to still all your food and drink out of your hands.We sun bathed all day, in the afternoon we had a stroll on the beach, walked up to see the view point while we watched the sun set and then explored a few bars :) we played some crazy Jenga which the locals taught us and enjoyed a few frozen margarita's.......
Koh Phi Phi
Only a short ride from Railey beach by tail boat- 5 days of glorious sunshine ..hahaha Hope you are all enjoying the winter!!!
The main beach here is to be desired, so we decided to do the jungle trek to long beach...literally hoisting yourselves across ropes up in the hill side of the islands. Its about a 45 min walk..slogging in the heat but well worth it. Flip flops maybe wasn't the ideal footwear for this...but Oh well no bones broken. This is a lovely beach, soft white sand and clear water, we could only last 5 mins in the sun before we had to make a dash for the sea to cool down. Very pretty scenery and had a very lazy day...until the sun set!
The next day we booked ourselves for tour of the islands...Maya Bay, Monkey Island, Phi Phi Lay lagoon, Shark Point etcWe boarded on to a long tail boat with around 15 others, only to discover we were the only girls willing to do the cliff jump, only to decide maybe there was reason for this??... So shark point first for a bit of cliff jumping, they provide you rock climbing shoes and literally drop you in the sea to swim to the cliffs, whilst hoisting yourselves up a sheer rock face to climb with no harness or ropes!!!!! Once me and Ashleigh took turns lifting each other up the rock pushing each other up by our bottoms, we were faced with a 11 meter drop to begin. Unfortunately as the other guys were real gentleman let us limb the rock first ,little did we realise we would then be the first to jump......fear set in. What was worst was that miss smith ( scared of heights) was first up in the rank....legs shaking and close to tears...as well as the boys joking to push her off..she kindly stepped back and suggested I go first..brilliant! what a good friend! This was the longesssttttt jump of our livessss, it felt like you was falling for forever trying to miss the rock beside of the cliff , as we had to leap to insure we landed in a safe place, whilst also jumping in the correct position, this is lot to think about at one time considering you're balancing on a tiny rock to leap from with a sheer drop. Needless to say we both made it. Ashleigh swam back to the boat immediately...clearly once was enough , I scaled the rock climb once more to have a second go at a breath taking 15 meters...wow! The swim back to the boat was very hard work as the water was choppy and you are still shaking from the jump..took a while to get there . Once safely on the boat we went for a snorkel to see the sharks, nemo fish and lots of jelly fish...was great once you got used to the breathing and strong current. From here went went on to Phi Phi lay lagoon... postcard perfect. Due to Ashleigh's motion sickness the guide wrapped a life jacket round her and literally threw her in the water for some chill out time with all of us , despite her green face, she was camouflaged in these beautiful waters! We had a good swim and set off for Monkey island- as soon as we arrived we was greeted by some veteran monkeys (Maybe even older then our fossil Dads!!!!) who clearly ruled the island, we were given pineapple and melon to feed them and gave them water from our water bottles to drink from...very cute! Whilst Ashleigh was sat rocking on the sand telling me this motion sickness was life threatening.....! Maya bay... or those of you who don't know this i where they filed 'The beach' unfortunately Leo wasn't here to greet us.....devastated!!! We got the opportunity to explore the National Park and had a swim the the blue waters. We all hopped back on the boat to watch the sun set and headed to another corner of the island to snorkel with the glowing plankton- those of you who don't know, you swim the the caves where its dark, swish your arms around rapidly to see little flecks of light in the water ..really cool but COLD!! Headed back for some dinner and a few drinks!!
Koh phangan
Full moon and jungle experience- for those who don't know, once a month on the full moon the island hosts a huge beach party and thousands flock to Haad Rin to dose themselves in neon paint and dance till the early hours. The beach in itself isn't a place you would really go to chill on during the day and there wasn't much to see but served the purpose for full moon. We had a lot of fun and got a bit tipsy- hard not to when buckets of drink were $1. Koh Lanta next.......we will update you soon.
Love always! xxxx
