Sharon and Andy's World Tour 2006

11 - 15 March

We returned to Bangkok, Thailand from Cambodia by taxi to the border at Poipet and then onward by bus. On the largely unsurfaced road from Siem Reap to Poipet the taxi had to negotiate some of the scariest potholes and diversions ever devised.
Luckily, we had an entertaining travelling companion - Shaun McLoughlin, an ex-BBC drama producer of 30 years' experience - whose anecdotes, views and advice on everything from travelling to producing TV and stage drama made a potentially painful journey very enjoyable.

With our time in Thailand nearing it's end, we decided we would make our way south to Malaysia via a few of the islands off the east coast. First stop was the tiny island of Koh Tao, a five-hour bus journey to Chumpon, and a two-hour catamaran ride away from Bangkok.

Our accommodation was in a secluded bay in the south-west of the island, reached by taxi-boat. The room itself is best described as a glorified wooden shed! - no hot water, no electricity, no flushing loo and definitely no aircon. However, the immediate surroundings made up for these shortcomings...

The big problem, though, was the heat; easy enough to cool off in crystal clear waters during the day, but totally inescapable at night thus making sleep nigh on impossible.

Anyway, we thought it would be a really good idea to hire a bike each and cycle around the island to take in some of the sights, and hopefully tire us out for a good night's sleep. Yeah, right. We forgot you had to be fit to do stuff like that; Koh Tao has some pretty unforgiving hills, so not only did we totally knacker ourselves within 15 minutes, but we were also saddle-sore for days afterwards.

Apart from the cycling episode we did a fair amount of walking, as the nearest town lay a good 40-minute trek away on an undulating coastal/forest path. Did this additional excercise contribute to a restful night? No. Because the nocturnal prowlings of a (large) univited guest in our hut forced us to remain vigilant...

Okay, I was wrong. I admit it, I was completely wrong. The temples around Siem Reap are awe-inspiring, and we thoroughly enjoyed three long, hot, packed days exploring as many as possible.

Once again, I'll let some photos do the talking, in this case a few shots of the most famous Cambodian temple, Angkor Wat:
(Click each photo for a larger version)

We took too many great temple shots to display on one blog page, so if you want to check out more, and all our other photos, go to
http://www.travellerspoint.com/photos/gallery/users/andymoore/

Whilst our expeditions were immensely enjoyable, one aspect that slightly bothered us was the hordes of tiny children at each site playing on their 'cute' appeal in order to try and sell us anything from postcards to silk scarves. Their polite but persistent manner almost shamed tourists into buying stuff; in the end it was necessary to become quite hard-hearted to avoid parting with every last dollar.

On our last day, Mr Han took us to visit some locals who earned their living producing Palm Sugar by refining the sap of palm trees into tablets of sweet brown sugar. We were shown the process from start to finish and, of course, ended up buying a fair amount of the delicious end product!

We left Cambodia with the feeling that we had barely scratched the surface of this fascinating country, and would like to return someday to explore everyday life beyond the tourist circuit.

Sunday, March 5

To be honest, I was indifferent to the idea of travelling to Cambodia on the pretext of visiting a bunch of - to my mind - old ruins. However, a visit to Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples was high on Sharon's list of must-sees and so I put my preconceptions aside and agreed to go.

The road journey from Bangkok to the Cambodian border at Poipet is notoriously bad due to the unscrupulous behaviour of some of the bus operators who run this route; we had heard horror stories of the entire trip from Bangkok to Siem Reap in Cambodia taking up to 13 hours. Thus I persuaded Sharon that a flight, whilst considerably more expensive, was the best way to get there.

After a 55-minute flight with Bangkok Airways (during which brief time the crew miraculously provided a meal, drinks and a duty-free service!) we arrived in Siem Reap. The beauty of arriving by plane is that your entry visa (20 US dollars) is all taken care of - very efficiently - at the airport.

Outside, our free ride to our hostel (Two Dragons, Siem Reap) awaited; a tuk-tuk expertly driven in frankly scary traffic conditions by the genial Mr Han:

It turned out that Mr Han was to be our driver and guide around the temples for the next three days.

Already, my view of Cambodia was changing - it is considerably more 'westernised' than I'd imagined (I'd pictured endless paddy fields, grass huts and industrious folk in coolie hats), but even amongst the modernity of Siem Reap the ancient religious aspect is always evident:

Mr Han safely delivered us to our hostel, and we were pleased to see that our room was squeaky clean, air-conditioned and served good beer and food.

We agreed with Mr Han to set off early for the next three mornings to ensure we derived the most benefit from our 3-day tourist passes (40 US dollars each). Over dinner we shared experiences with a friendly couple from Scotland, Fiona and Archie, who are also touring the world. Finally we tumbled into bed, at least one of us eagerly anticipating the next three days...

Our last few days in Chiang Mai were spent exploring, and it's surprising just how much interesting stuff there is to explore.

One experience that had been recommended to us was the night market, and so we took a stroll out one evening to see what it was all about. Wow! Every street in the old part of the city was turned over to market stalls selling as many local handicrafts as you can imagine and fantastic food (we pigged out on incredibly cheap and tasty chicken satays and juicy sausages, all cooked to order).

The market was busy when we arrived, and being huge it took us a few hours to cover, but when we left the place was absolutely packed! As a browsing/shopping experience We'd recommend this to anyone - it's just a great way to spend an evening mixing with locals and other travellers alike in a secure friendly atmosphere. And, of course, there are bargains to be had if you like haggling.

Finally, we visited Doi Suithep, a Buddhist Temple set high on a mountain overlooking Chiang Mai. Of course, Thailand is liberally dotted with temples and we'd already seen a few, but Chiang Mai is such a great place that we felt we couldn't leave without visiting one of it's most famous sites.

Here are a few images to give you a feel for the place:

Strangely, this place gave us the taste for visiting a few more historic temples; but where in the world would we find those...?

Wednesday 1 March

After the rigours of yesterday's trek to the Karen Village, we were pleased to learn that today would be all downhill. We were joined for this final leg by another couple - Shirin and Mike from New York - who thankfully were the same age as us and had roughly the same level of fitness! They also had a great sense of humour which made the going fun.

The walk down from the village was a comfortably paced two-and-a-half hours, with the heat dictating some much needed stops, one at (yet another) picturesque waterfall-cum-rockpool place.

Eventually we were pleased to reach a small hut selling cold drinks and snacks with a handpainted sign reading "Jungle 7-11". We knew that the actual 'trekking' part of our trek was over.

Next stop was at an elephant camp, reached by a somewhat rickety wooden suspension bridge over the river we had rafted down on the first day of the trek. This was our first close-up experience of elephants since South Africa, and this time we got to take a ride!

Again, we were slightly dubious about the treatment of the animals but in the end it seemed that they were happy enough; particularly when ours was allowed a bath in the river and didn't want to come out again...

The ride itself was pretty uncomfortable; the seat was rudimentary and as the elephant climbed up and down some fairly steep and rocky hillside paths it was all we could do to hang on! Luckily, Mike and Shirin volunteered to take some photos of us from their elephant and, all things considered, they did a pretty good job.

Feeling even more in need of a clean up than our elephant, we took a slow ride back to our hostel and after long, blissful hot showers, a trip to the laundry, a good meal and a few beers we sank once more into a soft bed in an air-conditioned room... oh yes, hardened travellers we are. Not.