Angkor Wat, Sihanoukville, the Killing Fields...

Hello there,

Well we dragged ourselves out of the gorgeous beds at 4am and walked around Angkor Wat. We saw Ta Phrom first, where they filmed Indiana Jones and the temple has been given to the jungle. Slow restoration is happening here, but we walked into the forest a little while to get to the jungle while it was still dark (we forgot torches!), tripping over tree roots (well it was better than when I stubbed my toe and tripped over elephant poo the evening before!) and delving into the ruins until we got to the centre. Angkor Wat is the biggest religious place in the world, and it has inevitably been damaged by past fighting and the weather. Nevertheless, it was an enchanting place to watch the sun rise from. And so big!

Bayon Temple - 216 faces all staring at you! Fifty four towers (the amount of provinces Cambodia used to have, but is now 22) host the faces of Buddha, which are absolutely beautiful. This temple was tiered so we climbed up into the centre and rested a little on the cool stone. It was about 8am by this point and starting to get quite hot. Onto the elephant terrace where pillars are elephants' trunks, and into a temple where, doing reconstruction work, they dismantled the whole thing, painstakingly making a note of where every piece went. (Think it was the French). Then they lost the paperwork. Typical! The world's biggest jigsaw puzzle - Corinne you would love it! Ten years after starting to sort out the mess and they have only done a part of the temple, with a lot of new bricks. Very sad but also quite funny in a way...

Angkor Thom was massive holding these temples, and we ended up at Angkor Wat. It is huge - the width across is well over 2km, and surrounded by a substantial moat. We loved walking around looking at the murals, the reliefs on the stone walls, generally loved walking around it. It was a great day, with Johnny our tuk tuk driver doing a great job - he left us to look around it, and snoozed in hammocks surrounded by his female admirers! Unfortunately at 1pm (after EIGHT HOURS of sightseeing) we decided we'd had enough of the heat and the walking around and decided to siesta back at the hotel... beautiful.

Next day was spent reading books in a comfy cafe about Pol Pot and the Killing Fields, until our 'Luxury bus' in the evening. Not so luxurious really! Hopelessly overcrowded, a very kind US navy guy offered his seat (for the 10 hours) to a breastfeeding mother. The seats were uncomfortable (luckily ours weren't broken) and small. We got chatting to the navy guys and ended up having a few drinks the following night with them in Sihanoukville. Really interesting people and great to listen to more 'grown up' people - a nice change from 18-20 year old backpackers! They were fascinating as they were divers, so we were very intrigued, and were just really nice, normal guys. Such a pleasure to meet them.

Sihanoukville - lovely seaside town on Cambodia's southern coast (well the town is in 3 parts, annoyingly), really geared for the tourist. Stayed in an alright hostel with delicious food, about 10 minute walk from the beach. The beach was side to side restaurants and bars, with beds/chairs outside under umbrellas, free to use. We ended up eating down there anyway as found a cheap place to have banana shakes, or fruit salads and it was so comfy! Dove into the water to clean off every now and then - not very clear water and ominous brown stuff oozing into it, but very refreshing anyway! I enquired about diving there, only to be told that the visibility was poor due to the rain and that they've eaten all the sharks and big fish in the area. Decided to give it a miss, so sad!

Had the most amazing massage in my life in Sihanoukville. Run by the Starfish Project which helps disabled people who don't get any assistance lead sustainable lives, we were massaged by a blind woman and another lady who might have been partially sighted. Being blind might heighten other senses - anyway, this was sensational. J and H had reflexology, and I had a neck and shoulder and back massage. It was sensational, and $3.50 for 30 minutes. Bargain! Never wanted to leave that place, absolutely incredible, cannot really describe it! And that was followed by a pedicure on the beach for me, which was desperately needed and a bargain at $4 - needed to pay her a little more to sort out my hooves! But now my feet look beautiful. So hard travelling!

Onwards to Phnom Penh yesterday morning on a leaking bus, and we arrived in this sprawling city where few buildings are more than a couple of stories high. Flanking a river, it is chaotic but friendly, bustling but relaxing, although crossing the road is a little dicey. Unfortunately sometimes you have to do it. Seeing as they drive on the right, but driving on the left is ok too, they don't stop now for pedestrians after a couple of traffic lights were put in the city. Actually, they don't stop for these lights either. So crossing the road takes a little prayer, a little blind faith, a little timing and a little sprint. Or to follow a local, putting them in the way of the car/motorbike/tuk tuk/lorry/elephant instead.

And the elephant... imagine walking along London during rush hour, when the most humoungous elephant just strides past with its keeper. HUGE! It was incredible, tuk tuks and cars dodging it, it was serenely meandering past. Photos will come of that! It made my day and made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside! Also visited a coffee shop here - beautiful - with comfy seats where the proceeds go to street children. Much better than handing out money on the streets is to give it to certain organisations, and we certainly enjoyed our coffee and massages!

So today, we went to the Tuol Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields. The Tuol Sleng museum was a school (think of an army barracks school - pretty much the same) where S-21 was housed under Pol Pot's regime of 1975-1979. We were so glad we had read up on this, as out of 20,000 prisoners here, only SEVEN survived. They were tortured (we saw the instruments) and housed worse than animals, before being sent to the Killing Fields 15km away. When S-21 was discovered there, 14 corpses were discovered too and there are graphic photographs in the rooms where they were found. Words cannot describe this place, but imagine Auschwitz with graphic photographs. Not for the faint hearted, but almost vital to see, to learn from.

At the Killing Fields you first see the stupa (monument) when you first enter. This monument contains over 8,900 skulls. And bones. And clothes found at about 85/126 mass graves here. Not a huge area, one grave contained over 450 bodies, another over 100 headless people, another mainly women and children... and we saw the tree where babies were thrown against to kill them. Bones abound here, and it is such a strange, sobering, horrific atmosphere. Yet, as when J and I visited Auschwitz, it was a beautiful day and the sun was shining.

So... back for a siesta and just woken up over 3 hours later! Think we'll need a beer to assimilate the day we had here. Hopefully heading to the Russian market or the animal sanctuary tomorrow, but not in a rush to leave here as our room is gorgeous! Flushing loo, cable TV with multiple films... absolute heaven, plus not too hot.

Can't put photos up until get to Vietnam as internet here is horrific! Going to Vietnam probably on Saturday, to Ho Chi Ming city (Saigon), so will put photos up after that hopefully. Mobile phone's a bit temperamental here in Cambodia - not all messages are getting sent/received, but will check emails every couple of days.

Anyway, lots of love to all,
from us girlies,
love Alice xxxxxxxx

ps met 2 awesome Italian middle aged ladies - so friendly, so now we have a Laos guidebook in italian! Score! So funny, they admit they're not great with the boutiques, and not great with money...!

Cambodia... and Siem Reap

Hey hey there,

Well we eventually left Bangkok after my Vietnam visa came through on Tuesday. H and J were very kind in waiting until it was processed, despite them hanging around for ages! Nevertheless, we had great fun in visiting the floating markets, experiencing some of the social scene and spending countless hours in Starbucks...! (We had lots of vouchers which meant it wasn't too expensive, and a real treat to be out of the heat and in the air conditioning)...

So yesterday we got on a bus horribly early and arrived in Siem Reap in Cambodia yesterday evening. Spending our nights in a gorgeous hotel with pristine white tiled rooms, 3 huge beds (small doubles), our own bathroom and also cable TV, such luxury! Siem Reap is quite tatty looking, and not as great as the LP makes it out to be, but we managed to find ourselves a nice cafe to park ourselves for a couple of hours. Also went to watch the sunset in Angkor Wat this evening but unfortunately the weather wasn't great and so didn't spend huge amounts of time there. We have our tickets ready now for tomorrow so are leaving at 4.30am to catch the sunrise there... quite painful!

Anyway hope everyone's ok, will write again soon,
Much love,
Alice and the girlies xxx

3 weeks later... in Bangkok!

Hello all,

First of all, thank you so much to people I managed to meet up with in the UK. It was absolutely marvellous to see you (albeit very briefly!) My 4 or 5 days ended up being very cram packed with trying to see as many people as possible in between running errands. So apologies to everyone else who I didn't get to see! We'll be back for good at the end of September... not long now!

So spent a few weeks at home helping out. Not going to say too much about that here apart from it was absolutely incredible seeing Mum again. A pleasure spending time with her, listening to her and realising that she had come back to us. My Mum as I knew her had returned, plus she is very funny! She had us in stitches multiple times, and it was harder leaving this time round after spending such a magical time with her.

So... after continually bawling my eyes out in LHR (I blame the hormones, only took me about 4 hours to stop crying!!!) I flew to Bangkok on Thursday. After a little hitch up with the timetable (I misread my flight arrival time and so H and J were expecting me 12 hours before I actually arrived. Luckily I had managed to email them to let them know this so they picked it up in the morning after getting a little concerned that I might have got quarantined for swine flu!)

Bangkok is far cleaner and organised than I expected. The people are a mixture of very sweet and helpful people, to the most convincing con artists around! It's a daily battle not to get scammed too much, but I think we do alright. H and J have been great in sussing out the best places to go, where to buy things, what to do, and had accommodation ready for when I arrived, which was much appreciated.

We are staying in Khao San Road, which is basically designed for backpackers, with 24 hour bars (not tried those yet), stalls, food stalls on the street, little supermarkets, internet, travel agencies... basically everything you need. It's a little intense with all the bright lights and crowds of people, not to mention the music blaring out of stereo systems until 3am. (I know, I was awake then last night. Luckily I managed to 'borrow' a few face masks and ear plugs from the plane which have come in extremely useful since). A very cool place but very overwhelming, especially with the high population here of 'gringo' tourists (Western tourists). The Irish bars are always full!

Today we got up at 5.30am (yes I know, very painful), to taxi and bus our way 105km out of the city to go to the floating markets. It was such an experience - we paid for a little boat (similar to a gondala but with an outboard motor) to drive us around the canals, and to pull up at the stalls on stilts or stalls on boats. So weird! We were driving around, as were lots of other tourists (luckily we got their quite early when it was quite quiet), and pulled up and grabbed the stalls or other boats selling food or goodies. The water was looking quite murky, but it was such a great system of getting around, and they were very used to dealing with the boats, and their subsequent traffic jams. Very very different to shopping in the UK! We just let our driver take us to the next stall or boat to have a look at what they were selling. Luckily we were restrained and only bought breakfast (I ate 16 mini bananas) and a little elephant pouch. It's nicer than it sounds!

Yesterday H and J recommended I went to visit Wat Pho (think that's the right name) - basically a Buddhist palace with a 46m long, 15m high reclining Buddha in gold leaf. You know the type of typical Asian photos in travel programmes with pointy gold and red roofs? Well pretty much exactly like that! Huge palace (got lost in it) but finally managed to find Buddha. He was very impressive, but kinda claustrophobic in a building very small for him, and pillars obstructed a lot of the views of him. However photographs to follow! Really feel as though I've arrived in Asia now. And it's exhausting (jetlag), not as dirty as I was expecting, completely surreal and noisy and chaotic. But somehow very fun.

Absolutely lovely to see the girlies again. They were very kind and waited until I arrived to go and see the floating markets, which I really appreciated as it wouldn't have been half as fun by myself. And they have been very kind in waiting until I get my Vietnam visa in Bangkok before we move on, despite there not being that much to do on a limited budget, especially as the main thing to do in the evenings is to drink. So we're getting expert now at finding things to do to keep ourselves entertained.

Anyway, must dash, but love to all, from us all again!
Al xxxxxxxx