not long to go now.
I now find myself alone in Kuala Lumpur and only 48 hours away from being back in Australia for the first time in over 2 years.
since I last put fingers to keyboard, we spent almost a week in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, wandering the city, visiting a few museums, trying not to do too much shopping, avoiding the over egar moto and tuk tuk drivers, and our favourite passtime of wandering through the central parks in the evening, watching the mass dancing groups competing for space and volume levels.
PP is a really nice city to spend a while in, even without doing a great deal. More relaxed than bangkok, yet more active than Vientiene, it has the right mix of old asia, colonial influence and new development. although things do seem to be leaping ahead at breakneck speed. I spotted a few KFC outlets and no doubt its only a matter of time before the big M can be seen there.
On our final day we decided to treat (i use the word loosely) by going to a pool bar next to the hostel, where as long as you spent $5 you could swim in the pool all day. It was nice to feel somewhat rich and spoilt, if only for an afternoon.
Eventually we made it to Siem Reap where we were meeting up with Paddy and Kate from Dundee. We were looking forward to seeing some familar faces again after so long on the road. However before that we spend a day at Angkor Wat, cycling round the temples on our rickety little bikes. It was bizzare to come back to something I never really expected to see again in my life, but it was well worth a repeat visit. It was a much different experience by cycle after my previous visit on with a group on a bus and a guide. being free to go where you please and spend however long you like was a great advantage. however the day was hot, the roads long and the bike seat HARD! after cycling back into town for lunch and a rest and then back again, we were beginning to get a bit tender on the backside. after a full day exploring, we headed out to a temple with a great view of the surrounding paddyfields to watch the sun set. however when we arrived the clouds had gathered and the thunder was cracking in the distance, so instead we were treated to a fantastic thunder and lightning show over rice fields and palm trees.
we left, hoping to miss the rain, thunder cracking overhead as we cycled the empty roads back around angkor wat in the fading light. after 1 hours of solid cycling and just on dark we made it back, dry but very very tender in the rump.
after waking with sore legs and aching bodies the next day, we finally met up with paddy and kate who was just starting to recover from a bout of dengue fever that she had caught while they were volunteering in a small village just outside siem reap. however the worst was now over and she was slowly beginning to feel better.
that night we headed out with some people from paddy's volunteer program, and some local expats which made for an interesting group. there was one lady who arrived in S.R 7 years ago and stayed for a week without even seeing the temples. all she was interested in was the sheer number of orphans in cambodia. Today she runs an orphanage with her cambodian husband and takes care of over 70 kids. and i thought 23 were a handful!!
we visited a few places that night, including a very posh bar full of locals and expats - we felt a wee bit out of place sipping our draught beers (cheapest) - but ended up having the latest night any of us could remember - 3am! the plans to head to the landmine museum the next day never got any further as we barely left the guesthouse until evening, our bodies remembering what hangovers are...
from there it was back to bangkok (my 7th and final time for this trip) via at least half a dozen different restaurants on the journey. although i guess what do you expect when you pay $8 to get from Siem Reap to Bangkok including a hostel pickup??
The border crossing was made fun by the fact that a torrential downpour started moments before we had to get off the bus at the cambodian border. we were stuck on the bus for a good 5 minutes before we decided to make the mad dash of 10m to cover - getting drenched in the process, and having to go back to the bus to get our bags before we could cross the border. finally, wet and soggy we trudged into thailand and climbed aboard the little mermaid bus (complete with ariel and the gang painted on the side and the decor of a cheap brothel) direct to khao san rd.
one night in bangkok and the world's your oyster..... or so the song goes. well we decided to make it 2 nights. we had another night out on the town (but not as messy, we learnt our lesson from siem reap), i FINALLY got a haircut at MBK, so now I look like the member of a thai boyband. she even styled it exactly as the current fashion is with thai guys - big and boofy at the back with a sweeping fringe. however once i restyled it myself I felt a bit better about it.
we also hit the flower markets which were a feast for the eyes, nose and my camera. it was just like walking around a normal south east asian wet market, walking down narrow aisles with men barreling past with trolleys full of ice, people everywhere stocking up and a sea of colour, except there were no unpleasant smells.
that night after paddy and kate headed off to the airport to fly to krabi, we headed to the train station to catch our slow overnight train, then a bus then a boat to meet them in railay. I love the people you meet on train travel. as we were both sleeping in top bunks, we were accross the asile from each other so had to sit opposite other people until the beds were made up. the woman i was sitting with spoke very little english but we managed to have somewhat of a conversation. she lived down south in chumpom and had come to bangkok to visit her 17 year old daughter who is at school, who's nickname is sandwich (yes, im not kidding) and she also had a baby son who's nickname was... little dog.. She kept asking if i was a doctor or medical student (yeah right!) and how old i was. she then insisted i take not only her phone number (which was of little use as she barely spoke english) but also her daughter's phone number. she then insisted i also take a picture of her daughter that she had shown me where she was all dressed up and posing like a queen. i'm not really sure what she thought was going on here, but i suspect she may have told sandwich to expect a call from an australian doctor and to try and marry him....? perhaps?
all the meanwhile she found the fact that gary had fallen asleep and was sleeping with his head back and mouth open in his seat hillarious. she grabbed the attendant to make up theire beds, but i wasnt so lucky. while everyone else had had their beds made up i still had an hour or 2 of broken conversation and offers of dunkin donuts and rice before i was able to get my bed made up.
as i said, i do love train travel.
finally we made it to railay - which despite feeling like an island (only way to get there is by boat) is only a penisular. but it's certainly a beautiful one at that.
well it's been a long day (i was up early to get to the petronas twin towers early) and i'm beat. tomorrow is a big day - train to singapore then the big one - flying back to australia. so i'll head to bed now i think after a final re-pack of the bags (ready for quarrantine to go through with a fine comb) and write my final blog from abroad at the airport.
so check back in 24 hours for the final adventures and thoughts from what has been an amazing 2 years.......................
