Bangkok and Cambodia

Our final part of the tour involved traveling down through Thailand, stopping by in Chiang Mai where I decided to put my exceptional culinary skills to the test and attend a cooking class. The highlight of this was our female cooking instructor, Tan, who handled our jokes and tomfoolery quite brilliantly. Needless to say I cooked up 5 outstanding Thai dishes without much help at all, cheers Tan. I visited a few more temples, also watched Django in a minibus, then an overnight train took us to Bangkok. Seriously if Lonely Planet don't hire me to write for them they are missing out.

On arrival in Bangkok, I noticed it smelled really bad, traffic was everywhere and we were warned about the scamming tuk tuk drivers. And that's exactly what we experienced when going to visit the Grand Palace. The tuk tuk dropped us off at a gate to the palace where we were greeted by a guy in shirt and tie who was kind enough to tell us that the palace was closed until 11am because of "special Buddha day" and we should go on a tour on the river for a great price. Upon realising he was bullshitting us, we walked further down where we found the main entrance and guess what, the palace was open. So this kind of summed up the city for me, I much preferred the less touristy and more genuine cities in Vietnam. Despite this I had some great experiences over the week in Bangkok having finished the tour, including the Sky Bar, cheap food, Chang beer and the infamous party strip of Khao San Road.

Now for the positive part of the blog: Cambodia. Well almost positive, because this involved possibly the most exhausting and stressful journey of my life from Bangkok to Siem Reap. A taxi got me to Bangkok Bus terminal where I found the next bus to leave was 3.15pm. As the bus left, I discovered that the border into Cambodia closed at 8pm, and the bus journey was 4-5 hours. Typically, the bus stopped countless times and arrived at 10pm to a remote border town that didn't even show up on google maps. Luckily there were two American guys in the same situation, and so we scanned the town to eventually discover the only hotel. With rooms costing a bomb, I sat talking with the receptionist for a couple of hours about getting a room for cheaper but he would not budge, only knowing the words "you check-in". Eventually I gave in and got a room, waking up early in the morning to do the dreaded border crossing. Reaching the Cambodia crossing, I payed the visa fee and an 'extra fee' of a few pounds which I later found out was a scam. The three of us were then approached by men claiming to take us to Siem Reap for 'good price'. We ignored them to head to the shuttle bus, as advised, and then get a taxi which decided to drop us at a tourist office just outside town. Here we were told to get into another taxi where a guy asked for more money and sell us tours for 'good price'. We told him where to shove his tours and got dropped off in town, at the wrong hostel, so a final trek across town in the 35C heat finally got me to my hostel, home sweet home after a horrendous 24 hours with 3 hours sleep.

The next day we visited Angkor Wat, the enormous group of ancient temples that attracts a huge number of tourists to Cambodia. A 5am tuk tuk ride (after a night out on 50p beers in the towns main party strip "Pub Street" at a lively bar caller Angkor Whaaat?) took us to see the sunrise at the main temple. The sheer beauty of this immediately made the awful journey and 4.30am wake up worth it.

We then visited a number of other temples scattered around the forest, including one that was the set of Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones and Temple Run, where huge trees towered over the ruins with the trees roots wrapping over the ancient temple structures. For what seemed like a long but mesmerising day riding around on the back of a tuk tuk through the jungle to visit each temple, it came as a shock to realise it was only 10am when we finished the tour. Five hours sleep in three days had also caught up with me. After taking a nap, I was lucky enough to be taken round a local school where a girl was volunteering as an English teacher. Since education is such an expense and a rarity for Cambodian youth, it was quite inspiring to see such enthusiasm from the students to learn in the classroom and have such appreciation for having the opportunity. Shortly after, whilst walking through the playground of the primary section of the school, a little boy ran out to ring a bell. Kids then flooded out the classroom for playtime, what great timing. So I got to enjoy some skipping and a million high fives with fascinated kids. That evening I witnessed the most intense thunderstorm that even the locals were impressed by, as they waded through the flooded streets to keep going about their business. A great spectacle to end an amazing couple of days in Cambodia. Back to Bangkok to see off a good friend, then a flight down to Phuket to experience the island life and see what all the fuss is about. I can say now that Island life is the one, as I sit on my deck chair on a white sanded beach typing my blog with a beer at the side looking out onto the blue ocean, despite having a rotten hangover. Stay tuned.