Just time to upload one photo of Angkor

More when I get a chance!

After a few days in Krabi Town we flew to Siem Reap in Cambodia on Monday 18th April.

We’re staying at the Two Dragons Guesthouse in the town, an air-con double room with bathroom (and hot water!) costs $12/night.

On Tuesday we set off at 9am with our driver, Mr Han, on his tuk-tuk (actually a trailer attached to a moped) to see the temples of Angkor.

We bought a 3-day pass for $40 each and headed first for Angkor Thom, a ruined city and temple complex. Words can’t really describe the sites, at least not in the time I’ve got fight the nasty keyboard in this internet cafe. A few hours there, a rest at the guesthouse and then on to the famed Angkor Wat with time to look around before sunset.

Sadly, sunset wasn’t visible due to cloud cover but we had a good look round the complex. Didn’t get many photos at that point as the camera battery went flat.

Next morning we set out at the unfeasibly early time of 5am, in order to catch sunrise. This time the sunrise was visible and we had a fully charged camera.
Great pictures and the site was relatively quiet. By 7:30am we had seen most of what we wanted there and went for breakfast at a nearby cafe.

For the rest of the day we toured a number of other temple complex, including the overgrown Ta Phrom which we both liked.

For sunset we headed up a hill close to Angkor Wat to a temple complex where we joined crowds of tourists watching the sun go down.

Today we had a later start, out by 7am for an hours drive out to another temple (we have an excellent guide book with all the names etc but I don’t have it on me) which had amazing detailed stone carvings but much of the site was sadly roped off due to renovation work. Driving along we got a chance to glimpse the rural life of Cambodia, the local houses etc which was fascinating (and a break for temple-tramping!).

Heading back to Siem Reap we visited another three temples, all very different, before finally getting back to the guesthouse just after noon.

The temples are amazing, Angkor Wat is a huge complex and the amount of human effort put into the construction and decoration of all the sites is staggering. Definitely worth the $40 entrance fee.

We have loads of photos, as you’d imagine, but haven’t found anywhere suitable to upload them from yet. They may have to wait until we’re in Bangkok again in a couple of weeks time.

Tomorrow we have a day in Siem Reap, and on Saturday we fly to Luang Prabang in Laos, via Bangkok again.

We arrived here on Tuesday, staying at “Somewhere Else” bungalows, paying 300 Baht (about 4 pounds fifty).

Haven’t done much, other than getting appallingly drunk on Tuesday night. The beach here is nice and the water is clean. Not many signs left of the tsunami though Song, one of the guys at The Zone Bar, has a really nasty scar where he was hit by a boat.

Because we’re here at the end of the season, there are no ferries to Krabi, so we had to get a mini-van (and two short ferry rides).

The weather has been great here, but it rained lots when we were in Krabi; the sudden tropical downpours you sort of expect out here.

We left Koh Phangan on 28th March and returned for a few days on Samui.

We stayed at the very nice Moonhut Bungalows in Mae Nam, on the north side of the island. Very clean bungalow with fan and 24hr electricity.

At about 00:30 the morning after we got there we were woken by our phones rining. It was Vic’s parents ringing to tell us that there had been another quake in the Indian Ocean and that there was a tsunami warning. As we were on the East coast of Thailand we decided not to worry (though we were very close to the beach), and as things turned out, there was nothing to worry about in Thailand.

On Friday 1st April we caught a flight from Samui to Krabi, where we are at the moment. We’re staying in the fab Chan Cha Lay Guesthouse in Krabi City, which must be one of the best decorated rooms we’ve had (and it’s quite reasonably priced!).

We kew our 30 day visa-free tourist stamp was due to expire soon,so we checked and found it was due to run out on Sunday 3rd, so asked at the guesthouse about doing a “visa-run”. They said we would need to get an A/C mini-van to Hat Yai (4 hours), and then get another van to Sadao (another hour), and go across the border in to Malaysia there. 250 Baht each one-way to Hat Yai, another 50 Baht each way to Sadao.

The bus left on Saturday morning at 6:30am and filled up as we picked up passengers around Krabi, before settling in for the long haul to Hat Yai.

We got to Hat Yai pretty much on schedule and then found the mini-vans going to Sadao (just round the corner from where we were dropped). A few minutes after we set off, the van ran into the back of a songthaew, smashing the headlights and quite a bit of the rest of the front of the van. Luckily no one was injured, and after a 20 minute wait another van turned up so that we could complete the rest of the trip to Sadao without incident.

Once dropped off in Sadao, we had to walk upto the Thai side of the border to get our exit stamps on our passports, and then walked a kilometre or so to the Malaysian side where immigration forms had to be completed and the passports stamped again.

Crossing the road we then went through the departure side of the Malaysian immigration, getting exit stamps. Back along the road to the Thai border with a brief stop off to look round the Duty Free shop in no-mans-land (not very interesting), fill in Thai immigration forms (from the Immigration Office on the left), another stamp on the passport (this time a Thai entry stamp) and back to the road where we were dropped off.

Quite straightforward, if a little bewildering in execution, all taking about 30 minutes. Bus back to Hat Yai for 3:30pm. The bus back from Hat Yai to Krabi wasn’t due to leave until 5pm so we went and got a drink and found an internet cafe (possibly the noisiest I’ve been in, full of 10 yr old Thai’s playing Counterstrike).

The journey back was uneventful, I kept busy with my recently purchased Gameboy Advance SP. Back to Krabi by 9:30pm making it a long day and we were fit to collapse.

On Sunday we saw some news reports on TV of bombs in Hat Yai where we had been the previous day. I’m not saying we’re jinxed or anything but over the past year we’ve had quite a few near misses with disasters etc.

Still, we’re safe and happy. Next couple of weeks will be spent around the Andaman coast of Thailand, probably Koh Lanta, and maybe Koh Phi Phi and Koh Jum. On the 18th April, we fly back to Bangkok, and then on to Siem Reap in Cambodia.

After a few days on Samui, we’re back on Koh Phangan, staying at the Coral bay bungalows in Chaloklum on the north of the island.

Nice bungalow, with a great view over the bay (see above) and wonderfully coloured sunsets.

We have a tokay living in our bathroom, using the floor in there as his toilet. He hasn’t caused too much disturbance so far, though we can hear other tokays calling during the night. He’s about a foot long and very brightly coloured.

Not sure what’s happening next, might be off to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, or might not. Vic is trying to sort out travel details but it’s not easy.

After our brief stay at Ao Chao Phao, we travelled back to Thong Nai Pan and managed to get a couple of bungalows at the Thong Ta Pan resort we had stayed at earlier.

We spent a few more days relaxing and enjoying the food and surroundings, as well as making a short excursion to Thong Nai Pan Yai, to the south of Noi where we were staying.

All too soon it was time to return to Koh Samui to get Lisa back to the airport. We returned to Samui on Thursday 17th March, and stayed with her at The Jungle Club in the mountains above Chaweng. The huts there are basic (thatched wooden huts with mosquito nets) but were very comfortable and had good shower rooms.

The Jungle Club pool is excellent, built on the edge of the mountain to give it that trendy “infinity pool” look. The owners and staff are all very friendly and there are two free Jeep transfers up and down the hill (the only way to reach the Club) per day. The huts are only 450 Baht per night. (The Club can be contacted by phone on 01-8942327 or 01-8918263, +66 for Thailand)

We spent an evening in Chaweng, eating and drinking at The Deck (very good value, for Chaweng).

After seeing Lisa off on Friday we headed back to Chaweng and walked along the beach before going to “Three Monkeys for dinner.

I’ve uploaded some pictures from our time in Thailand so far.

We met up with Lisa on Sunday and caught a flight to Koh Samui that evening. It’s only an hour from Bangkok on the plane (14+ hours on the train/ferry).

We stayed for a couple of nights at Cactus Bungalows in Bophut, just along the beach from the hotel we stayed in in 2001. The bungalows were nice enough, though the beds were mattresses on a raised concrete platform, so could have been softer.

After a day recovering from travel and visiting the cafes of Bophut we caught the ferry from Bophut to Koh Phangan (there seem to be at least 4 ways of spelling it) at 9:30am on Tuesday.

Arriving there we got a pickup truck to our resort (Thong Ta Pan at Thong Nai Pan Noi) for a very expensive 600 baht. With hindsight we should have got a Song Thaew instead as they only charge 80 baht per person.

Nice resort, our bungalows were on a hillside about a hundred yards from the beach. Towels and toilet paper were provided which was a bonus. Nice clean beach in a bay with good swimming. We spent a bit of time lying on the beach and swimming.

We spent three nights there, eating at resort restaurants and on our last night we visited Que Pasa, a Mexican restaurant run by an English girl. The food was good and we were entertained by the local dogs playing and chasing motorbikes.

On Friday we moved on to Ao Chao Phao, via Thong Sala, to stay at the Seaflower bungalows. Looking back, it was probably a mistake, the rooms were more expensive and had fewer facilities (no towels or loo roll) and the beach was much narrower with a very shallow bay that made swimming impossible.

We enjoyed a few sunset drinks at the Pirate’s Bar, and then had a superb meal at The Village Green, a nearby restaurant/pub. Vic and I had a massaman curry (chicken and potato in a sweet peanut sauce), and Lisa had a giant BLT baguette. We’d definitely recommend a visit to the Village Green to anyone in the area. They do lots of British pub grub too, like steak and Guiness pie, chip butties etc.

We’ve been here in Negombo for just over a week.
We’re staying at the Silver Sands hotel, which is nice enough, though the staff are a little umm.. untrained. We’ve been eating quite a few meals in the excellent and friendly Ruwini restaurant, just across the road on Lewis Place.

Tomorrow, we fly to Bangkok, where we’re spending one night. We’re then meeting up with Lisa who is flying out from the UK to visit for a couple of weeks on Sunday. We’re all flying down to Koh Samui on Sunday evening, and after a couple of nights there, getting the ferry over to Koh Pang Ngan

We’ve enjoyed Sri Lanka, we’d like to come back when the tsunami recovery work has progressed further and visit some of the areas we’ve missed. We’ve spent far too much money, which is going to make things interesting, but hey, that’s why we’re doing this whole trip.

Early start tomorrow, flight is at 7:45am, and we’re under instruction to be at the airport 3 hours before, so 4:45am!

Managed to get them uploaded, so here’s the Taj Mahal pictures which were taken more than 2 weeks ago now.

I’ve also uploaded the Sri Lanka pictures to date. These cover all of the Cultural Triangle sites we visited, plus Kandy, and Ella.

Another update without photos, I’m afraid. Not managed to find somewhere that we can upload pictures yet, though I’ll try harder in the next couple of days. We still have the Taj Mahal pictures to upload, and have since filled the 512mb memory card again!

We arrived in Sri Lanka late on Monday 7th February. We had a hotel room booked so got a taxi from the airport to the Airlink hotel. After being shown to our room (which was basic but looked okay) we started to unpack but noticed a cockroach appear from under the door. A big cockroach, maybe 3-4 inches long. One wouldn’t be a problem, but then more and more started to emerge from the bathroom, from under the bed and a variety of other dark locations. We put some roach-killing chalk down but this only worked slowly. After half an hour, with 4-5 roaches in their death throes around us we went and asked for another room, which was available, but at additional cost (what a surprise!).

The next room was fine, and we slept until about 7 when we got up and headed for our next hotel, the lovely Colombo House in Colombo.

Great room there, more of a suite in fact. Lovely old house with a balcony etc.
We went for a walk to absorb a bit of Sri Lankan atmosphere. The first thing that struck us was how much cleaner and better built everything was. The roads were less unruly, people seemed happier than in India, and it was lovely and warm, much welcomed after our last week of cold and rain in Delhi.

After a day of shopping and eating, we booked ourselves a tour of the Cultural Triangle through Mr Linton of Rail Tours, just close to Fort Station in Colombo. We would have a car and driver for 5 days starting out from Kandy which we would reach by train.

The train journey was very pleasant, 3 hours in the 1st Class observation car on the train. 1st class isn’t as posh as it sounds, probably equivalent to a dirty Standard Class train in the UK. We travelled up through the hills to Kandy, passing some lovely views of forested and cultivated hillsides.

On reaching Kandy we stayed at Mr Linton’s Blue Haven guesthouse, up in the hills above Kandy with beautiful views over a valley.

I won’t go into great detail on all the places we visited, but over the next few days we went to Dambulla, Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa, Mihintale and Anuradhapura, all part of the UNESCO Cultural Triangle of Sri Lanka.

We saw some amazing buildings, ruins, stupas (dome-shaped Buddhist shrines) and sculpture, most of which we took pictures of. As I say, I’ll upload some of the pictures when I can as they surpass anything I can say about them. We met some great people too, particularly Mr Peter Larsson (from Sunderland; good luckwith the teaching job, Peter), Kumar our driver, and Nuwan who guided us so well at Mihintale

After the tour we returned to Kandy, and caught a train to a hill-station town called Nuwara Eliya, about 4 hours away. We spent a day there, with a quick look around the town before heading to Ella, a small village in the Highlands surrounded by spectacular views.

In Ella we walked down to Ravana Ella Falls, before catching a bus back to the guesthouse. Ella is a lovely place, marred only by the excessive competition between the guesthouse owners. We stayed at both the Ella Gap Tourist Inn, and the Ravana Heights guesthouse, and both were very good, although very different.

On Sunday 20th we caught the train back to Colombo, a marathon journey of 11 hours (again in the observation car) which delivered us back at 10pm.

So that’s what we’ve been up to. The photos will take some weeding through but I hope to get them sorted soon.

Our next step is on to Negombo on Wednesday, one of the few beach places which wasn’t badly affected by the Dec 26th tsunami. We haven’t spent any time on a beach since Arambol, so we figured we could so with a bit of relaxation.