By Simon Barnett on January 15th, 2010
We chose the luxury bus from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh at only $11 each for a 6 hour journey. After a mosquito killing contest which resulted in an 8-2 victory for me, the journey was uneventful, save for the smartly dressed Cambodian girl whose job it was to make announcements and hand out free snacks. She was full of useless information about all the provinces we travelled through but, due to being barely understandable, most of these facts passed us by as serenely as the Cambodian countryside.
We found Phnom Penh to be a little underwhelming to be honest. The National Museum wasn’t bad but the Royal Palace was pretty dull (and expensive at more than $6 each!) and there is not a lot else to do here other than the two principle sites to visit, both related to the horrors of the reign of the Khmer Rouge.
First was Tuol Sleng – a school which was hastily converted into a prison in which the educated classes could be tortured and forced into confessions by the new government under the command of the recently tried Duch, one of the only members of the regime to show any sort of remorse for his actions.
Some truly horrific stuff happened there in the name of creating a new, agrarian, self-sufficient society overnight and the experience of looking around the adapted classrooms at the faces of the 20,000 that were sent there can only be described as emotionally exhausting and harrowing. The fact that it was a school that was in use right up until the day the Khmer Rouge emptied the city in 1975 served to make it all the more horrific I think.
Exhausted by the experience, we decided to leave the famous Killing Fields until the next day which, I think, was a good decision because if anything, this was harder on the senses than the prison.
After spending what could be months in the prison being tortured, inmates were taken to these fields 15km south of the city in trucks, where they were led to ditches, made to kneel and simply bludgeoned to death by various blunt instruments to the side of the head, bullets being deemed too costly to waste on killing people they thought were just not worth the expense.
The worst experience came when our guide pointed out that there are still some 10,000 bodies under the ground here, some of whose clothes, bones and teeth are beginning to surface as the tourists walk around the place. Realising that that piece of cloth you can see sticking out of the ground under your shoe belonged to a victim of the genocide was particularly disturbing, as was seeing the tree on which the troops reportedly smashed babies heads against to kill them before dumping their, and their mothers’ bodies into the ditches.
In the evening, we ate at a restaurant in town which employs street kids and teaches them (in several different restaurants) the trade including waiting tables and cooking, which gives them a leg up and gives them the chance to get a job using their experience once they have qualified. It felt like a tiny contribution to help these people out and I suppose our mere presence here, spending our pounds on tuk-tuks, night markets and hotels helps them out too.
Next day, we travelled down to Kep, a small town on the south coast where the wealthy used to come to relax in their big houses and villas back in the 60’s. During the years of the Khmer Rouge and civil war, the place was virtually destroyed and today the place is littered with deserted shells of old hotels and houses.
The town is growing again and there are a few tourists here but it’s still very quiet and we’ve enjoyed relaxing here for 3 days, staying in a wooden hut up in the trees. We’ve also me some really nice people from all over the world, one of which actually MET the King that day when we could only stand and watch him swish by in his official car in Siem Reap so that trumped Annika’s excitement at just SEEING him and I think she’s finally coming to terms with the fact that she’s not going to become Cambodian royalty on this trip.
Cambodia has been a fantastic experience – the people are great and very friendly, despite the very recent traumas that almost all of them have come through. Everywhere you go, there is evidence of what happened here, land mines leaving many amputees and orphaned children begging on the streets and yet there are a lot more smiling faces around the place, particularly children who are very happy to wave and shout “Hello!” to every foreigner they see.
The food has been really good and it has to be said that Angkor Wat and the other temples were the highlight of the trip so far.
Tomorrow morning we are off to Vietnam, starting in the Mekong Delta, heading to Can Tho before travelling north to S-s-s-s-Saigon where, I’m led to believe, the average age is 19. Hmmm.
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By Simon Barnett on January 11th, 2010
The boat trip went on forever!
8 hours in total in the end, the last hour and a half bouncing around in the waves on Asia’s largest freshwater lake, the Tonle Sap. It was an amazing trip, winding along a narrow river for a few hours in the early morning past some very poor looking riverside people who all waved at us with big smiles on their faces and then out into a wider stretch of water, through floating villages and more waving children.
Once across the lake, the boat dived into the mangroves and fought it’s way through reeds to get to Siem Reap, Annika having to swerve out of the way of whipping bamboo and other wildlife as we picked a careful route through.
A silly argument with a tuk-tuk driver later and we arrived at our hotel.
Next morning, we were up at 4am again to go and see Angkor Wat appear at sunset, along with most of humanity. Well OK, there weren’t THAT many people there but photos were hard to get due to the people insisting on standing up and sitting down all the time whilst preparing their tripod-mounted cameras at the front.
It was an amazing sight, the 5 towers which represent the 5 peaks of Moint Meru (Everest) slowly revealing themselves, reflected in the pond that sits just in front.
As soon as the sun had risen, the camera papps all packed up and left and our guide began delivering his encyclopaedic knowledge to us. By the time we’d walked round Angkor Wat I was beginning to really feel the effects of so many early mornings though and breakfast was a welcome fuel boost when it came.
Once revived, we set off to one of the far flung temples in the area, Banteay Srei which was quite small and very interesting, The Citadel Of Women apparently.
Lunch was followed by a visit to Ta Prohm, the temple used in the filming of Lara Croft apparently. I’ve not seen the film so that side of things was of little interest to me but this is probably my favourite of the area as it’s buried in the jungle and is in the very slow process of being eaten by the various trees that have sprung up in the short time (900 years or so) since it was built. Apparently, once the temples were abandoned, seeds dropped by birds in their droppings landed on the temple walls and began to grow. Gradually, their roots have reached down towards the ground, strangling the temple below, sometimes knocking parts down as it goes, creating some astounding combinations of nature and human creation.
Our last stop was Bayon in Angkor Thom which was the source of much historical information for the Cambodian people – a lot of Cambodian history had been lost and the carvings in this temple provided historians with a lot of useful knowledge.
I, however, was flagging in the heat by this point so you’ll have to ask Annika if you want to know any more! All I can remember are tons of nutty stories about gods and demons churning milk in the sea to make a potion which would make them live forever and, my personal favourite, Kala, who was greedy and hungry so decided to eat the head of one of the gods (Vishnu) but, when Vishnu discovered this, he punished Kala by making him eat himself (why didn’t Kala think of that before?!) from the feet upwards and now his little grinning face sits atop almost every lintel as a demonstration of what happens when you get greedy. As I said, mental.
It was a truly exhausting 12 hour day of sight seeing but unlike anything I have ever seen and it just has to be done if you get a chance – fantastic. Our guide was a genius of the highest order and has asked me to set up a website for his (only exists in his head at the moment) tourism business as he only earns $15 per day for giving us rich people the benefit of his knowledge. Anyone fancy lending their skills as I am not exactly a web design expert (as can be seen by this site!) ?
An early night and a change of hotel and we hired some old, crap bikes and set off for the temples again next morning. Believe it or not, there is much more to see here than you can comfortably fit into a day or even two. We pedalled our aching buttocks around like crazy but there are still bits we failed to see (Preah Khan for example, which is massive) and we managed to get to the traditional sunset viewing spot just in time to see it close which was nice.
After a week of early mornings and exhausting days we decided to stay in Siem Reap for another 2 days and rest as our hotel was very nice and fairly cheap. We spent Saturday by the pool, Annika had another (!) pedicure and in the evening we went to the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital for a cello recital by the guy who founded the Kantha Bopha hospitals, Dr. Beat Richner who calls himself Beatocello.
The guy is amazing, not for his cello playing (which apparently was very good though what do I know? I played recorder at the age of about 8, that’s my musical background!) but for his commitment to the children of Cambodia. He has pioneered and founded 5 hospitals (4 in Phnom Penh, the other here in Siem Reap) which provide treatment, free of charge to children who have any health problems, most of which are tuberculosis and Dengue Fever – he has apparently reduced the mortality rate in children from 6% to 0.5% since the first one opened in 1997. Amazingly, only 5% of his funding comes from the Swiss government (he is Swiss) and 5% from the Cambodian government – the rest is donations.
The evening consists of a few cello pieces dotted in between his views on world health, particularly his scathing opinions of the way that the WHO and UNICEF are run. Without knowing much about the subject, it is hard not to see his point of view – his hospitals look superb, he pays his staff (who are 98% Cambodian) a more than decent wage (in order to prevent corruption) and they even give the remote farming families the price of their travel back to the hospital to ensure that they can afford to return for out patient treatment – the average income of a farmer here being around 50 cents a day. He’s the sort of individual who ought to get a lot more coverage for his work and yet I’ve never heard of him – I suppose there’s tons of people like this around the world doing just as vital work for people who need it without any recognition and yet people who win X Factor are lauded as heroes for overcoming some private personal tragedy at some point. Bonkers. Donation donated, we left feeling rather pointless but at least we’d done something, even it was a relatively small something.
Sunday was unremarkable, save for a visit to the National Museum which houses a lot of the relics that were found in the temples and an unexpected glimpse of the King!
As we left our hotel to go to the museum, there were tons of police around a nearby school and quite a few onlookers. Deciding that, even if we hung around to see who it was going to be we wouldn’t recognise them, we wandered off to get ourselves a tuk-tuk. “Maybe it’s the King?”, I said to Annika as we strode across the bridge as she quite fancies him, having seen him in the film Dr. Richner showed us the previous night. “I don’t see why it would be”, came her reply.
Our tuk-tuk driver did his best to nip through the traffic which was all being held back by the police to keep the roads clear but in the end, he failed and we were forced to stand by the side of the road and wait until the mystery celebrity had passed. Barely 5 minutes later and his motorcade glided past, King Sihanouk leaning out of the window of his state car, waving at the crowds. Annika maintains he waved and smiled at her so everyone prepare yourselves to greet Queen Annika I in July!
It seems a shame to leave Siem Reap. Our 5 days here has been so nice and so varied, I’ve really enjoyed it. But leave we must and we are now on our way to the capital – Phnom Penh.
By Simon Barnett on January 6th, 2010
Well this has to be the most bizarre location to be writing a post for my website – we are currently on an old boat, slowly cruising up the Stung Sangker river from Battambang to Siem Reap (Adele, this is your chance for the second instalment of the ‘following waterways on Google Maps’ after your virtual trip down the Suez Canal!). For those that have seen it, think Martin Sheen in the boat in Apocalypse Now – “That’s Cambodia, Captain”. But more of that later.
Monday began with yet another early morning and a 4 hour bus ride from Bangkok to the border with Cambodia at Aranyaprathet – then the silliness began. The guide books all talk about the various scams on offer around this area, the first of which was the tuk-tuk driver who promised to take us from the bus stop to the actual border 5km away taking us to a fake ‘Cambodian Consulate’ to get a visa before we’d even left Thailand which we saw coming and managed to avoid.
The border itself wasn’t too bad if you just ignored all the touts (save for the interminable wait for a passport stamp, caused by 30 or so Russian tourists barging their way to the front of the queue.
We bought a ticket for a shared taxi in Poipet (the horrible border town nearby) to Battambang and jumped into the car. We drove around the corner and stopped by the side of the road, 500 yards away, apparently to pick up 2 more people. After a 20 minute wait, the taxi driver and his mate suddenly sprinted off in the direction of what appeared to be local who’d just come over the border and had grabbed a moto taxi to the town. They then seemed to sort of wrestle the guy off the back of the bike, one man grabbing the ‘lucky’ passenger and the other grabbing his bag and led him to our car. At which point, another taxi driver laid claim to the vital human cargo and tried to steal the unperturbed local’s bag from our man. A sort of schoolboy tussle ensued, won by the imposter, and we lost our chance of immediate departure.
A 30 minute period then followed during which ‘we’ attempted a couple of other minor kidnaps and drove around the dusty back streets picking bags and other people up but eventually we were off, and after a very squashed couple of hours, we arrived at our destination.
Initially, Battambang (inexplicably pronounced BattambOng) didn’t fill us with much hope. Fairly dirty and quiet, a little bit shabby and quite dull we thought. But after a drink on the rooftop of our hotel and a chat to some of the locals, it sounded like there was much to see in the local area and motorbikes was the best way.
Nex day, I attempted to ride a manual gear motorbike to the end of the road and back with, err, limited success. So we each took a guide with us for the day who drove the bikes and led us to the best sites which were down bumpy, dusty, unmarked roads so I think it was best we didn’t attempt it on our own.
The first site, some caves used by the Khmer Rouge to kill hundreds of people during their short reign of power in the late 70’s, was reached by driving down an incredibly dusty road, orange dust covering everything in sight including trees, houses and people! “Cambodian snow”, my driver told me – it is a joke they are very proud of but not a bad one in truth and very apt, given what we are reading about conditions back home.
A day of arse-punishing roads, local temples and amusing times teaching our guides some English slang (“she is fit”, “big tits” etc. was the general theme) left us exhausted and quite, quite orange from the ’snow’.
Another early morning and now we are on our way to Siem Reap, home of the famous Angkor Wat on the river, which is such a good way to travel, seeing the people living by, and on the river going about their daily chores and small children waving enthusiastically at the site of the farangs chugging past.
In 7 hours time, we will be there – we intend to stay for a few days as Angkor apparently takes 2 days to see properly and we could do with a rest (these early mornings get a bit silly after a while). Our hotel has a pool and Annika is 2/3 of the way through War and Peace so some reading shall be done.
By Simon Barnett on January 4th, 2010
Happy New Year everyone!
We spent 3 days on an island called Koh Yao Noi for New Year, staying in a wooden hut near the beach on the east coast in a place called Pasai Cottages. It was pretty basic stuff but very nice all the same.
On New Years Eve, we hired a mountain bike each and cycled round the island which was no mean feat! It is flat for most of the south east and west of the island but as we made our way towards the north it began to get hilly. Timing it perfectly for the midday sun, we ended up inching up and then inching down some very steep dirt roads looking for somewhere, anywhere, to get a drink and some food and maybe even a beach to sit on for an hour. The road continued like this for around 7 or 8 miles though with nothing but the odd shack hidden in the jungle and several times we considered giving up and going back. We got to the end though, and found a posh exclusive resort on the beach called Paradise Beach Resort. We had some decent food there but it cost a fortune compared to the rest of the island and water was 6 times as much as it was when we left! We looked at the New Year menu and noticed that it was £90 per person which is an incredible amount in this country.
The island is mainly Muslim so we were expecting a pretty dry New Year party but things didn’t quite turn out that way, sadly. We had 2 large bottles of Chang down the road before wolfing down a rather drunken (I may have mentioned it before but Chang is evil) green curry with a bottle of Singha each. We go back to our bungalows to find Thai dancing, fire jugglers and “Balkan Beats” (as Dun, the resident Turkish German DJ referred to them) thumping out from the bar as well as a pretty terrible band playing barely recognisable cover versions. A few more Changs were sunk and New Year was welcomed in whilst standing in the sea which was a new one for me. I think we went to bed at around 2 but I don’t recall much and me and the lady had to piece the evening together the next day using the photos on the camera to aid our sore, hungover brains. Whoops. I think we only had about 4 pints each but, as I said, Chang is evil.
New Years Day was wasted and the next day we were off in the direction of Bangkok as our time in Thailand was nearly over. An unremarkable day in Phuket Town was followed by a flight to the capital early next morning and, by now, tiredness was really kicking in.
We slept for 3 hours when we got back to our hotel that morning and then did one more palace and the insane Chatuchak Market (is there ANYTHING you can’t buy here?!) before attempting an early night and we’re now on a bus heading towards the border with Cambodia at Aranyaprathet to start the ‘proper travelling’ part of the trip.
Thailand has been fantastic, particularly the food and the people. Everyone is so friendly and smiley, it’s almost unnerving at first. Hardly anyone has tried to rip us off or mess us around, transport actually leaves EARLY (which is annoying sometimes) and you only have to ask anyone for help or directions and they are more than happy to help.
The Thais really know their food and some lovely meals have been had in almost every place we’ve been to, even if some of them (last nights in particular!) have left me gasping for a drink to cool my burning mouth down.
We’ve seen some beautiful places and relaxed on some lovely beaches and it’s a shame to have to leave – I’ll definitely come back, Koh Lipe and Ban Krut stand out as my favourite places.
But now it’s off to Cambodia and this evening we will be in Battambang.
By Simon Barnett on December 30th, 2009
We will probably not stay anywhere for as long as we stayed on Koh Tao and I have to say, it was lovely to unpack completely and do nothing but relax and read for a week. But you can have too much time on the beach and it’s nice to be moving again.
It took most of the day to get from the island to Krabi via catamaran and minivan but it didn’t feel like a long trip, save for our first experience of loud, obnoxious Americans in our minivan who must have had some terrible hearing problems as they insisted on yelling to each other despite their close proximity and bought a small stereo and played crap music on it for most of the 4 hour journey from Chumphon to Krabi. At this point may I give a big shout out and an appreciative thank you to whoever it was that invented noise-cancelling headphones.
We checked into our hotel, ate some food at the night market and had an early night. Next day, we hired our first motorbike of the trip (£4 for the day!) and sped off to a local national park to do a bit of hiking and to see a waterfall or two. Arriving just in time to catch the midday sun, we climbed through the jungle up an insanely steep hill for around an hour until we reached the top. Nice view but the theme for the day had been decided on – sweat.
After another trek through the trees, we found the top of the waterfall and then had to clamber further up to get across it and then, eventually, down to see the other 10 levels as it cascaded down the mountain. Suitably stinking, we jumped back onto the bike and set off in search of some caves.
Guarded by a short, rather rotund old woman, sat on a tree stump in the woods like some troll from a children’s fairy tale, the caves were set into the side of a hill, requiring yet more climbing (up rotting wooden stairs etc. this time) to reach them.
Before we found the cave entrance though, there was just time for an action thriller when I managed to knock my sunglasses off my head as we inched down a steep path. They bounced twice in front of me and leapt, lemming-like, over the edge and landed 15 feet below on a steep bank. I tried to reach down to them but the ground kept falling away and I couldn’t get near – but not to worry, it turns out I am going out with the real life Lara Croft and the heroic lady clambered around another way and managed to rescue them, watched from the bottom by the strange troll woman who must have thought we were mad or possibly that we would find some of her hidden treasure by leaving the (not at all) designated path.
The caves, once we found them, were superb – after crawling into them on our bellies (more sweat, more dirt) they opened out a little bit into almost complete darkness, lit only by the torches provided by Troll Woman. As soon as we lit them up, the many bats which were asleep in there woke up and started flying around us which was amusing. 15 minutes were then spent clambering around the various chambers and we were only stopped by the fact that the wooden bridge across a small lake had collapsed into the water (the troll later explained to us that we were supposed to get off the broken bridge and walk through the water – of course!). The whole thing was great fun in the end, despite us being filthy dirty and (according to Annika) me smelling like a gerbil.
Back on the bike, we trundled back up the elephant dung littered path – they do some sort of elephant safari nearby – and sped off to a local temple which is also home to hundreds of monkeys which are fed by people buying bananas in the small shop. Before you are even aware that someone has bought some, the word goes round the monkey community and all hell breaks loose, monkeys careering down from all angles to fight for the bananas on offer. As usual with monkeys, they are fascinating to watch, scooping and licking the flesh out of the bananas and then just dropping the skins wherever they are at the time, the unfortunate losers trying to eat bits of paper etc.
All in all, our day out in Krabi was excellent fun and not a little exhausting.
This morning, we took a speedboat to the island of Koh Yao Noi where we are staying in yet another wooden hut just across from the beach. No Internet though so I’ve no idea when this will be posted so Happy New Year everyone. We are on a Muslim island so our New Year celebrations may well be less boozy than yours – but then it may also be hangover free so hey, you takes your choice.
By Simon Barnett on December 23rd, 2009
So it’s nearly Christmas and, bizarrely (for I have never spent Christmas abroad) the weather is hot, there are beaches and coconuts and my biggest decision of the day is whether to sit in the sun or the shade to read my book. Tough.
Just to bring you up to speed on our travels, our train from Trang to Chumphon was almost lovely. I say almost because, 5km outside of our destination, the train broke down and we sat, anticipating movement any moment, for 2 hours without having a clue what was going on. Eat your heart out, South West Trains!
We rumbled agonisingly into the hole that is Chumphon around 10pm with just enough time to check into our extremely basic hotel, buy a ferry ticket for the next morning and get a (Parma ham?!) sandwich in the dead and biblically wet town before retiring for the night.
Precious little sleep was had though, due to the constant pounding of the rain outside which continued all night, making it sound like we were under attack. When we rose at 5am for our ferry it was still coming down in a similar fashion and the journey to Koh Tao (3 hours) was quite rough and very, very boring. From a land of just Thais, we are now in Gringoland, the boat passengers being almost completely Westerners.
Koh Tao is touted as the diving capital of the world as it certifies more new divers than anywhere but I don’t think we shall be diving here. The whole island is geared up for it whihc means all the sites are over-dived and crowded – plus the visibility is not great due to monsoon. No problem, we did some snorkelling today and we actually saw more doing that than we did during our dives in Koh Lipe.
Our hotel is, thankfully, way out of town on the South coast in an isolated bay, virtually on it’s own, which is how we like it. Our wooden hut is perched on a hillside, amongst the palm trees with a sea view – not bad for £56 a night! It is a really beautiful resort and the staff are all really friendly but they’re obviously quite a new business and they haven’t quite got it right yet.
No Internet (hence the lack of posts), the TV doesn’t actually pick up any channels (not a big deal), no hammocks on the veranda (a cardinal sin, I believe) and some monumental taxi cock ups which have resulted in some mild annoyances. None of these things are terrible in themselves but it all contributes to us feeling that this place WILL be a luxury resort one day but not quite yet. Still, it’s not bad and as I sit here typing this whilst laying near the bar looking out to sea (with a Christmas album playing – “Let It Snow” is the current track – seems unlikely somehow) I can’t say I’m all that gutted to be missing out on an English Christmas for the first time in my life – apart from Mum’s cooking of course.
I’ve no idea when I’ll be able to actually post this but whenever it is, have a great Christmas everyone and I will be back to document the next leg (Koh Tao – Chumphon – Krabi for 2 nights – Koh Yao for New Year) as soon as I can.
By Annika McKee on December 20th, 2009
Inspired by Simon’s love of all things mathematical I thought I could share with you our vital stats to date. In this way you too can live the dream that is travelling with a geek.
Number of days spent on this hellish trip – 16. Simon tells me we have a total of 189 days left or 28 weeks. Am considering providing a handy pie chart so you can keep up with how much is left to go! That’s one country almost done and only 11 to go!
Number of books read- Annika 5, Simon 2 ( although he started reading the first one 3 months ago)
Number of forms of transport – 8 including plane, trains but oddly not automobiles, we have however done various types of boats and tuk tuk related modes of transport
Number of days Simon hasn’t had some ailment of some description – 1. Nothing major you understand but includes hurty foot, neck and of course suffering from too much curry!
Current overspend on budget – ……well it is christmas and we’re using a bit of the contingency we had stashed! (well I used to be a risk manager before I got in touch with my traveller self… Innit)
Number of Thai words we think we know: 10 at this rate we are quietly confident to be pretty fluent by the time we leave in 2 weeks. Of course we’re not entirely sure they understand us but we’ve definitely got ‘2 singhas please’ and then ‘thank you’ pretty much sorted. What more do you really need???
I had managed to not buy any tat but them we arrived in Ko Tao and have bought a few items of turquoise clothing to supplement my already mainly turquoise wardrobe. It’s my hommage to David Icke. It being Christmas tomorrow I feel sure that Simon will want to further add to my already overweight bag witha few more carefully chosen blue items of clothing – well at least everything matches that way even if the overall effect is that of a crazed woman! Am considering getting my hair braided or maybe even a henna tattoo of some Chinese writing or some spiritual shit.
Number of mosquito bites – well I counted 12 on my right arm a few days ago so not going as well as I would have liked I guess. Simon seems less affected by the little buggers and attributes this to having more body hair… Am considering giving up shaving my legs to see if this works for me too!
Right , that’s about it I guess and I need to get on with war and peace – am on page 18 which, if I keep up this pace, should mean I have it finished by the time we get to new Zealand and I need the space for more turquoise clothes…. Innit!
By Annika McKee on December 20th, 2009
Argh.. You see how Simon gets to do all the glamorous locations ( this is my ( Annika) first post – very exciting eh)? Well I am fighting back with a quick update from Trang. Oh Trang, the place the guidebook describes as a “transport hub” with a market, what can i say to fully convey the look and feel of this place so that you at home can almost experience this place with us as I know you would want to?!
Trang, a mere 2 hours from Pak Bara in an airconditioned mini van, rendering Simon almost immobile after disembarkation and subject to yet another physical woe, this time a hurty neck, is indeed just what it says on the tin. The hotel we checked into last night were so pleased to see us and the guy personalised a map of trang so we wouldn;t miss out on the highlights -a concrete clock tower, the train station, bus station, some bookshops with some unusal titles in Engrish, but i’m being mean really… come 6pm and there is a fab night food market which we spent a good 2 hours in checking out food which we had no idea what it was! Delights included barbecued pork, some kind of wonton thing – fried of course, some pork scratchings, summer rolls and then i kind of went a bit crazy and started buying anything that looked vaguely interesting! i reckon we must have spent at least a full 3 of your english pounds on delicious food – brilliant! We polished this off with 3 bottles of singha beer ( between us mind) and now both have mild hangovers! but nothing that a 7 hour train journey to Chumphon, again described as a transport hub, in about 30 mins.. and from there folks we go to Ko Tao to stay for a week over christmas for basically doing very little – am planning on working my way through ” War and Peace” – if for no other reason than i am getting tired of carting the bloody brick like book around..
No doubt Simon will post from the beach at Ko Tao. I shall be focusing on providing an overview of the somewhat less picturesque but quite honestly no less enjoyable destinations that we stumble accross.
Right… time to get that train, which often turns up early belive it or not and from what we see on the news something that is not happening in snowy UK ( i had to get that in ) Ciao
By Simon Barnett on December 16th, 2009
I’m sure you’ll all be relieved to know that I didn’t miss the Liverpool game, having managed to pick up the good old BBC World Service on the train to Hat Yai.
And what a bizarre experience it was – cocooned in my sleeper compartment in an old, noisy train dragging it’s way south towards Malaysia whilst listening to Alan Green and Jan Molby talk me through a superb away win, I found myself punching the air in silence as Arshavin scored the winner.
Annika was, of course, extremely happy when she discovered that I’d been awake til 1am listening to football. The previous statement is not true.
It was hard to get any sleep at all, even after the radio had been turned off and despite the relative comfort of the bed, as the train constantly lurched from one side to the other and made some fascinating crunching and grinding noises. Still, £15 each for a night’s accommodation and a 10 hour train ride was not bad.
A bus journey to Pak Bara followed, where we spent a night in a cheap place whose bathroom sink emptied directly onto the floor due to the lack of appropriate pipework, which was amusing.
Next day, a 2 hour boat ride took us to Koh Lipe and what could quite legitimately be described as paradise. We are staying in Castaway Beach Resort in a wooden hut near the sea – which is an incredible deep turquoise blue and laps gently against the shore (the sea, not the wooden hut). There are a few traditional Thai long tail boats anchored nearby and our resort has some lovely areas to relax in the shade as well as some characteristically fantastic food and lovely people.
If we go anywhere in the next 6 months that is as nice as this, I will be amazed – it is simply superb.
Tomorrow is our first dive day of the trip – I am a little apprehensive about this as I always am with diving but I’m sure it will be excellent. A scuba refresher course followed by two dives, split by some lunch.
We have booked in here for an extra day, despite the cost, as we like it so much – it gives us one less day to get to Koh Tao for Christmas but that’s fine by us.
This. Is. Paradise.
By Simon Barnett on December 13th, 2009
Is the fact that I am able to write this blog entry whilst sitting under a coconut tree on the beach a good thing or a bad thing?
It seems quite strange, browsing the web in such circumstances and Annika is convinced that it’s a sad state of affairs but you, dear readers, are the lucky beneficiaries of this age of technology so I will allow you to be the judges.
We arrived at our hotel in Ban Krut on Friday night, just in time for dinner and a beer outside our little cottage, yards from the beach. After breakfast the next morning, we made our way down to the sea to find the place almost completely deserted. Grabbing a deckchair each, we began to wonder where everyone was – we’d read that this area of Southern Thailand was quiet during the week but this was Saturday and we were expecting hordes of locals to be fighting for space and shade but there is no-one. Despite a 15 minute wander down the beach, all that was to be found was another two virtually empty resorts, and a strange feeling that this place had been abandoned. And yet the only rational explanation is that the owners of these places are expecting many guests and yet, for some unfathomable reason, precious few have arrived. It is truly superb to have the place to ourselves but there is an odd atmosphere about it.
Annika has used the privacy and isolation to start doing her callasthetics on the beach (no photos allowed, apparently) and we both listened to a podcast about the philosophy of something called the yuk reaction.
In order to preserve the universal truth that the British are really not very good at sun bathing, however, we both managed to get quite burnt after only an hour in the sun so that was nice.
Still, the usual mix of gorgeous food and insanely nice people prevails and I shall definitely recommend this part of the world to anyone who likes peace and quiet and stunning beaches.
This evening, we embark on our first overnight train journey – to Hat Yai, further South – in a sleeper carriage. For my part, I will be trying to find the BBC World Service as our game away at Liverpool kicks off at 11pm (bluddy Sky TV and their crazy kick off times!) but I don’t expect to hear any of it so will probably not know the score for a day or two. This will be the first Premier League game I will have missed since being here – there will be many more so I must get used to it.
Once we get to Hat Yai in the morning, it will be a bus straight to Pak Bara where we will stay for a night before heading off to the island of Koh Lipe on Tuesday for 3 days and, inevitably, yet more beaches, sea and great Thai food.
It’s exhausting just thinking about it.
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