Sat 30 Aug 2008
One of my most favourite places in the world, Angkor Wat. The ancient faces look out from the Bayon as they have done for centuries. My friend Andy looks up in awe.
South East Asia Nov 2005
Archived Posts from this Category
Sat 17 Dec 2005
8.30pm friday, only 28 hours to go before Im winging my way back. 
Get
your fake student ID orders in quick!
Kinda happy/sad really, had a great time, but reality beckons and all good
things must come to an end. Back in Bangkok after flying from Saigon this
afternoon, felt suprisingly ok after the mad night we had, Bandy was *much*
worse off :p Spent yesterday doing the tourist things, Museum of American
War Crimes, Market, Cathedral, dodging the rain (and touts) and just
exploring a bit. Met up with some people from the bus from Cambodia for
dinner and then headed out to the ‘Apocalyse Now’ bar, which was a lot
busier than last time I was there. But then it was christmas, and they were
probably having xmas do’s. No room on the dance floor so we had a wander,
ended up in some dodgy bar. Strange how the girls that are desperate for
you to come in and drink when you’re walking past turn as cold as ice when the
answer to the third standard question is ‘well, um, no’ (whats your name,
where are you from, buy me a drink?).
Bandy bailed from his pool game, substituting me, without telling me the
‘wager’ was 100,000 dong if we lost or the girl went topless if he won. Of
course, I made as much as a pig ear of it as he did (although it was very
close). Should of taken our tops off, then its all fair innit :p
Back to ‘apocalyse’ until closing (they have a surfboard nailed to the wall
with the legend ‘charlie dont surf’) and then off to a lockin at another
dodgy bar to talk about teaching english, football (yeah me…) and fake
watches with the yanks, swisses and dutch. Thought I’d call it a night at
that point…. yeah right, back to backpacker central, only managed one
sprite before I was back on the tequila :p Didn’t find our hippy friends
though, shame. Day before it pissed it down so we did the obvious thing…
saigon water park!! Hey, it was the hippies (Ash and andy) suggestion
honest! Nearly empty, still very warm, no english spoken so we couldn’t get
told off for damming the lazy river with all the rubber rings. Nearly killed
bandy on the dark water slide by failing to jump back on the twin raft I’d
fallen off and smacking his head on the wall as we went over the dip at the
end… great fun!!
Made it back last night for 4am which was pretty good I reckon. Tomorrow
I’m gonna shop until I drop and then drink all night until I get my flight!
Shopping might be on hold if I drink myself into oblivion again tonight….
right I need a beer!
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Mon 12 Dec 2005
still in Phnom Phen, Bandy has been ill (again). He was covered in the most
horrific rash which slowly travelled throughout his entire body (or so he
assured me). Looks like prickly heat I reckon, we went to a 24hr clinic,
took his blood pressure, heart rate, then produced a massive needle to
inject him. We declined, unfourtunatley the ‘doctor” didn’t speak a word
of the queens so we still dont know what it is. Doesn’t look like ringworm, i
just checked. I didn’t help matters by joking that he’d been drinking lots
of whiskey :p But then what do you expect when you let me into a private
consultation!! (along with 5 members of the docs family too, eager to see
the ‘barang’ (foreigner) squeel as he’s injected with god knows what.
We just had a nice curry for breakfast, I think he’ll be ok. Hoping to go
to Ho Chi Minh tomorrow, or Saigon as its sometimes still called. Every time
we need to move he comes up with some hypercondrical illness! Still we’ve been
having fun, someone was shot and killed just up the road from the place we
were playing pool, outside the club that we had earlier left. Bandy was
crawling around behind the bar, but they quickly locked the bar up so we
didn’t have anything to worry about. Maybe he was just thirsty :p
6 days to go, it ain’t fair!!
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Sun 4 Dec 2005
Back to Angkor (third time)
Back to Angkor (third time)
Posted by trousers under South East Asia Nov 2005
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We’d arranged to be picked up the next day by the motodriver that had
hassled us all the way from where the bus had dropped us off to our
guesthouse, but that wasn’t until 4pm. Had a wander around siam reap, used
the net, off loaded a load of photos onto my portable harddrive, got
attacked by the rain, wandered through the market (all thoughts of bird flu
momentarily forgotten (there are chickens *everywhere*!)), sat in a posh
french cafe and had posh shakes (read same same, twice the price (you pay
for the orchid)). Back at the GH the usual plans to extort more cash from
the tourists began, ‘oh we’re early, we take you to shop first’ yeah……
was fun to see the one girl ring the bell and turn on the lights in this
huge shop and all the girls come running in case we want to buy
something…. we didn’t. Overpriced tourist tat! Still the drivers got there
commission, we wasted 5 minutes before we could buy our tickets to one of
the wonders of the world…. everyone happy!
You can buy your tickets the day before and get a free sunset (which is
nice cos it was the only one I was gonna get). We hung around the ticket office
until the alloted time and hit the temples. Didn’t have much time, it just
stopped raining as we handed over our $20 so it wasn’t gonna be much of a
sunset. We checked out the south gate, nice linked balustrade, with naga’s
on the end…. bah, look at the photos, nice, nice, but not very
spectacular. onto the Bayon, everyone’s seen it, huge pillars with faces on
all 4 sides. Its a nice temple, one of my faves, still a little run down,
they haven’t touched it for a good few years. More wooden walkwalks for the
less agile tourist, same magic. Great place. We basically stayed there
until it was nearly dark and headed back, getting my moneys worth on my new
camera. haven’t used it a great deal, kinda worried about it getting nicked
but its paid for itself now I reckon. Nice and small, 5mp, card is big
enough, fits well in your pocket and doesn’t look terribly expensive.
had to be up early the next day so didn’t want to overdo it, no pizza
adventures that night!!
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Sat 3 Dec 2005
Up up and away early the next day, i really should have done some more
research into what we were doing but I vaguely remembered from 3 years ago
on the same road. There is a knack to getting to Angkor Wat without getting
sucked into the nightmare of your average tourist. Its very easy to get
scared and herded in with the rest, only to be subjected to imaginary
delays, breakdowns at convienient restaurants, stops for no reason at all,
all in order to get commision and herd you into the best paying guesthouses
at 3 in the morning. Never again. We got to the northern bus station in
Bangkok in time for the 8.30 am bus AND breakfast, bonus! The trip went
without a hitch, we jumped in a tuk tuk and headed for the border. While
being ably (and uselessly) helped by our local tout (did he really think I
couldn’t figure out which building did what despite the huge signs saying
what they were….?). We got through customs and immigration ok and then my
memory of the required proceedure became a bit fuzzy. We got on a
motortuktuk and tried to get him to take us up the road to where you get
share trucks. We only found one, he tried to take us off the main road but
I called him up on that and we went back. We carried on, the guy was ok, bit
crazy, we had some nice races with tourist buses, they must of thought were
were going the whole way on that death trap!
Eventually the town dissappeared and we stopped on the dirt track in the
jungle and looked at each other. I half thought that this would be went he
would get his gun out, as he stopped speaking english and just spoke
khmyer. I wasn’t too concerned, i jumped out, flagged down the next minibus and
asked the driver if he was taking passengers. turned out he was a angkor
wat guide coming back from thailand and we jumped in the back to the
astonishment of his family.
Nothing wrong with the road, we averaged about 60 km/h and apart from one
stop when we thought the bridge might be down it went without a hitch. My
first time we averaged 10km/h, the second maybe 70 as the road was
completely flat. Loads of room, no pointless stops and his 2 year old
children were more fun to watch than the usual karaoke TV rubbish. Turned
up in siam reap at 7pm, which was 12 hours after we woke up. nice! crazy
germans!
Couldn’t believe the ammount of huge new hotels now! must have been 20 on
the road from the airport, 100+ rooms each, all luxurious. Slightly
different from the $2 room I checked into :p one shower and the obligatory
bumping of the backpack contents onto the bed and were were ready for food
and beer. It all gets a bit hazy after that, first place we saw was ‘the
happy herb pizza co’ and we figured we may as well have a pizza. I
introduced Bandy to the lovely local Angkor Beer (2 thumbs up) and we
shared a medium pizza, also ‘medium happy’ whatever that means. Interesting night,
and I’ve not been quite as happy as that for a good while! Must be the
tomato sauce!
We somehow made it back to the guest house after bizzare encounters with 4
magic trick playing english guys, the indian barman that wanted to kill
them, the worst pooltable in cambodia (it should be shot), the
uncontrollable desire to write down billy joel lyrics (but improved), the
saddest and simultaneously happiest and nicest person with no arms you
could meet and a desperate quest for water by looking for a ’shop with water’
(anyone will sell you water….). Ah, fun.
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Fri 2 Dec 2005
We gotta get out of this place…
We gotta get out of this place…
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No, we got up late and did very little all day. Hung out in khao san,
played pool in gullivers, bought some tat, banana pancakes…. We really have to
leave, the adventure is slowing down….. We packed our bags and had an
early night, after chatting up some nice japanese girls of course. Met some
germans earlier amd they terified bandy by saying the bus to siam reap took
22 hours. fools! Met someone else who said the road was worse than mongolia
(ie there are no roads). Another fool :p
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Thu 1 Dec 2005
I wanted to leave the next day but Bandy ‘needed’ a digital camera. Im not
disputing this but he was here 10 days before me! Anyway we went into town,
I sent him off to the dentist alone, he got lost and we had a trial
separation for most of the rest of the day. I had a choice, I could go to
the hairdresser or go watch a film. harry potter won, it wasn’t bad, and I
had sushi for the first time in my life! Was nice, i obviously dont get out
much. I found bandy later and wouldn’t you know it hes gone blonde (or very
yellow). That was my idea!! We went in some terrible Thai bar for expensive
drinks and although it was late thought we might have another bash at soi
cowboy. Well, we weren’t leaving the next day as someone hadn’t bought a
camera…. again!! :p
We could have done with one that night! I’ve never felt so popular in a
bar, and ‘nicky fom new zealand’ (or so she said) was very friendly. However I
should point out that I was completely honourable the entire time (unlike
someone!), didn’t argue about the over inflated bar bill and went home
alone despite a very interesting prosposition. No I’m not gay!! We stopped at the
notorious thermae bar for a penultimate drink, wasn’t that impressive or
notorius I thought. Maybe because it was a week night…. Chatted to 2
swedish guys fresh off the plane and ripe for the kill, we saw them later
with a bar girl each glued to their arms. The crazy fools.
One last beer on the street to watch the craziness of Suhkumvit road at
2am, I left bandy chatting to some girl and headed home. I took far too long,
eating pad thai and getting water as the bugger was waiting in ambush for
me! Will he buy a camera next day…..?
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Wed 30 Nov 2005
Back to the big city
Back to the big city
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got the bus to bangkok, no drama, went the dentist, had a great indonesian
meal at the central mall. Expensive, but nice. Booked into a crappy room in
Khao San and by then it was the evening. We went to check out a few bars
down on Soi Cowboy, which was an eye opener. Five star bar had a great band
and they even let tourist up to play a few numbers, a couple of old english
guys were pretty good. they got someone to sing ‘hey joe’ which was
interesting as every time they tried to wind teh song down he started
singing again. Must have gone on for 20 minutes!! Everything closes in
bangkok at 1am these days (or earlier) so we went home. We declined an
invitation from Bandys new mate ”rick’ to go play pool in some dodgy bar.
Got trapped on the street mat bars again though, prettty sure that was
‘party dog’ night, torturing poor animals with balloons :p
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Tue 29 Nov 2005
Next day was more of the same, bandy recovering from his poorly stomach
(and getting up at 7am to find his watch, to no avail). I’ve felt fine pretty
much the whole time, had a sore throat in bangkok but that gave our kid a
chance to oggle the attractive pharmacist in boots when I bought strepsils.
Theres not a lot to do, swim, play guitar, banana pancakes, etc etc. Great
weather, occasional showers, steady 28 degrees the whole time I reckon. Got
a bit of a tan now, nothing serious, no burns like a usually do. Can see
the white bits on my feet from my sandals nicely. I like that 
Ran into Tom the next night again and he’’s been drinking since the
afternoon and was well on the way to getting completely hammered. We’d been
given flyers for toks again, free bucket of sang som which is a huge lethal
drink! The flyer said ‘lets get f**king wasted’ which is a nice thought. He
was with his ex-girlfriend, which was kinda freaky (for him). Bandy went
early and I consoled poor Tom as his ex went off with some bloke she’d met
on the ferry. Nice girl, aussie. We even got accosted by a random french
bloke on the beach who reckonned we were going to win the world cup with
‘rouuunay’ or someone. Was nice to hear someone have some faith! I had the
scary jungle trek on my own and we had arranged to leave the next day for
the trap that is bangkok. Any chance of leaving the day after…..?
hmmmmm…..
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Mon 28 Nov 2005
Karaoke Madness (again)
Karaoke Madness (again)
Posted by trousers under South East Asia Nov 2005
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next day we woke bright and early to take advantage of another day and
another beach. We had ended up on one of the more remote beaches so getting
to where the majority of the action was entailed a trek through the jungle.
I kinda like ko samet, lots of thai tourists, enough bankpackers, not too
rowdy, not too quiet. We had a boring day, swimming, listening to Jack
Johnson (again!), eating banana pancakes, drinking shakes. We had a great
afternoon jamming away on the guitars too, until some random thai woman
opened our door and yelled “excuse me!” I think she didn’t like the sweet
music we were playing, Bandy thought she’d just got the wrong room. She
looked pissed off to me! That night we went out in search of action, but
there wasn’t much to be had. Met a english guy called Tom and took him off
to the local karaoke bar. Quite a good selection, and we broke the rules by
getting 4 songs in a row instead of the usual 2 per group. I belted out a
great ‘band on the run’, bandy muddled through à will survive and tom make
a massive mistake with coldplays yellow because he forgot about the high
bits which he couldn’t sing due to laughing too much. The crowd was going
wild when we lauched into ‘bohemian rhapsody’, we were building up to a big
rock out climax, and just at the point of beeelzeebub having a devil set
aside for me, for meeee, for mmmeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEE!! the computer crashed
and the song ended. I guess you had to be there, but I was so I dont care.
We wandered back to Toks huts and spent the rest of the night chatting to 2
danish girls who I insulted by asking if they were swedish. I dont know who
suggested the skinny dipping, but I dont really care. Although technically
it was only the boys as the girls were much more modest. Bandy lost his
watch, and now I torment him by constantly asking the time. Shame Jungle
treks while drunk and soaked are best avoided.
