Battambang – Cambodia: 14th Oct 2009

This morning was great - we did a ‘smoking pot’ course! No, not a course in smoking pot, but a Cambodian cooking course at a restaurant called the Smoking Pot. It was the first restaurant-based cooking course ever offered in Cambodia and started 9 years ago. The day started with a visit to the market to pick up our ingredients, which included live cat fish (at least they were live when we pointed at them, but a few bashes on the head from the stall owner’s hammer put paid to that). We also bought chicken and beef and all sorts of crazy veg that I’ve never heard of (they must be in the isle of Waitrose that I don’t visit!).

We cooked three dishes - ‘Fish Amok’ , followed by ‘Fried beef with Ginger’ and then hot and sour soup. All were delicious, but our fave was the Fish Amok, really coconutty! We were given a recipe book to take away so we’ll definitely be trying these at home, and we enjoyed the course so much that we’ve decided to do one in Thailand, and maybe one in Vietnam as well!

Afterwards, Sam and Johanna, a young couple from England who had been doing the course with us, joined us in our tuk-tuk for a quick drive around town to visit a couple of temples. In Cambodia they are still building many Buddhist temples – all in the traditional style, with loads of gold and intricate statues. It’s amazing, the same as if we still built gothic style churches in England. It’s a good way to keep the old crafts alive.

After a couple of hours chilling in the guest house we went to a cool bar overlooking the river and surrounded by jungle, where we hooked up again with Sam and Johanna. They’ve been travelling for a couple of months, mostly in SE Asia – they leave Battambang tomorrow but are going to follow roughly the same route as us up to Hanoi so we may well bump into them again along the way!

Siem Reap to Battambang: 13th October 2009

Today we travelled from Siam Reap to Battambang. We had intended to get the boat, which was meant to be a very scenic 6 hour route. Unfortunately our hotel decided to book us on the bus, but didn’t tell us so we were quite surprised and disappointed to be dropped off at the bus terminal without a boat in sight – the buggers! The journey was nice though, lots of countryside to see.

Battambang is Cambodia’s second biggest city, although it’s much more rural that Siem Reap. It’s famed for its French colonial architecture and laid-back atmosphere. Strange that, as we arrived to see a run-down town with hardly any French colonial architecture and so noisy and busy that I’d hardly call it laid back! Anyway, we’re determined to make the most of it and who knows, we might find the elusive ‘Battambang charm’ over the next couple of days!

At least our guest house is nice – it’s a bit out of town, but it’s in a French style colonial villa (found one!) and our room is very spacious. The landlord is a lovely man, he seems very kind.

Siem Reap – Cambodia: 12th October 09

Today we hung out with Shirley, visiting the market in Siam Reap, followed by lunch and then cake. In the evening we went to an Apsara show, that’s the traditional Cambodian dancing performed by women dressed as ‘Apsaras’, kind of Cambodian fairies! The lead dancer was a complete stunner, very beautiful. After the dancing we visited the night market and had a few drinks whilst having a $2 foot massage – nice!

We said our goodbyes to Shirley as she’s off to Manila tomorrow – she’s been a blast though, very good fun!

Angkor Wat / Siem Reap - Cambodia: 11th October 09

Today we had a quiet day, a lie in followed by lunch in town, where we watched a great street entertainer jumping through a ring of fire and knives.

After that we visited the National Museum of Angkor Wat. Our favourite bit was ‘the room of 1,000 buddhas’ – it really does contain 1,000 buddhas, most of which are gold, and all in cases covered with scarlet velvet – a very dramatic sight, it’s worth the visit to the museum for this room alone!

Angkor Wat / Siem Reap - Cambodia: 10th October 09

We were picked up at 9am by Tom and his Tuk-Tuk. This is going to be our last day of temple visits as we bought the 3 days ticket. We started with a 2 hour drive through the countryside to the hills of Kbal Spean. After a 45 minute walk up the hill through the jungle (quite precarious at times!) we reached the famous carved river bed. There used to be temples here and the monks carved deities and patterns into the river bed during the dry season. Below the carvings are a couple of small pretty waterfalls. Nice place, with lots of butterflies as well!

After that we went to Banteay Srei. It’s a smallish temple but is famous because of its intricate carvings and great preservation, it’s a lovely place, made of pink sandstone and everything looks like it has miniature proportions.

On the way back to town we stopped off at the Cambodian Landmine museum – this was set up by a guy called Aki Ra. From the age of 10 he was a Khmer Rouge soldier, trained to kill and plant landmines. At the age of 17 he defected and joined the Vietnamese army, who were fighting against the Khmer Rouge. Once the Vietnamese had gone, he joined the UN and was trained in landmine clearance.

He has become a leading figure in the effort to clear Cambodia of land mines and has spent many years independently travelling the country disabling devices and providing education on the dangers to local communities. He has also taken in children who have been maimed by landmines. He currently houses over 20 orphans on the site of the museum and runs it to ensure that the danger of landmines is understood by the next generation. We found the museum very inspiring, there are estimated to be more than 3 million live landmines remaining in Cambodia. The museum aims to increase awareness of the landmine situation in Cambodia and through its demining programme make the country safe for its people.

In the evening we got together with Shirley and Gareth for cocktails and were joined by 2 Brits, Clare and Nicola. The 6 of us went for happy pizza and normal pizza and then went to have a fish foot massage – yep, a foot massage by fish. You put your feet in a tank and loads of small fish come and nibble them – they only eat the dead skin cells. It was great, it felt really nice and our feet are nice and smooth now – they should bring this to England!

Angkor Wat / Siem Reap - Cambodia: 9th October 09

This morning we got up at 4.30 to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, the largest religious complex in the world. We arrived at the temple about 5.30 and found a nice quiet spot to sit. The temple is unique in that it faces West - all the others face East - so it’s the only one that has the sun rising behind it. Unfortunately we’re at the end of the rainy season, so there were lots of clouds - no spectacular sunrise for us! It was nice watching the clouds get lighter though. I had a couple of slices of left over pizza for breakfast and Matt and I trundled off to explore the temple. It really is huge, which is great because we did have quite a few times when it felt like we were on our own.

After Angkor Wat, we went to Angkor Thom, a huge city complex and walked around the temples and terraces. The main temple has 50 towers, each of which has 4 Buddha faces, very beautiful.

The next temple we visited was Preah Khan, it’s different from the others as it’s made up of dozens of long corridors and courtyards, a great place to explore. Apparently Anjelina Jolie filmed Tomb Raider here. I think this one was my favourite.

We stopped at a couple of smaller temples and then finished at Ta Promh. This temple is famously still covered in trees, so looks like most of the other temples did when they were ‘re-discovered’ by the Europeans in the 1850s. It looked like a fairytale, really pretty. Because we’re at the end of the rainy season, everything is green and lush, so it was a great time to see this particular temple!

At 1pm we’d seen enough (we’d been going since 5am remember!). So we spent the afternoon chilling in the hotel and both had 2 hours of massage – blissful!

After that, we went to the hotel’s bar for happy hour and met a new friend. Shirley is 30 and from San Francisco. Her grandparents are from Taiwan. She’s a really good laugh – with such a potty mouth that she makes Sharazed look demure (yes, really!). We went out for drinks and also met a guy called Gareth, the chief vet at Sydney zoo, who spends his time inseminating elephants and operating on tigers! After a couple of cocktails we all went our separate ways but will meet up tomorrow for happy pizza. Yay!

Angkor Wat / Siem Reap - Cambodia: 8th October 09

This morning we were picked up by our tuk-tuk driver, Tom. He’ll be our driver for the next three days, he doesn’t speak very good English but we can just about make ourselves understood. He wears a nice pastel pink helmet!

In the morning we headed to the ‘Roulos’ group of temples, which were built a couple of hundred years before the other temples. They’re not as big as some of the others but are good ones to start at as they’re the earliest. They were really spectacular and we had a nice time wandering around and sitting absorbing the atmosphere. One of the smaller temples had a monastery attached so we sat and watched the monks for a while in their saffron gowns.

Outside each temple you get accosted by at least 6 kids trying to flog soft drinks, water and scarves. They’re a bit of a nuisance but you have to be patient with them as they’re just trying to make a living.

After visiting 5 or 6 temples Tom drove us to the river where we boarded a boat for a tour of the nearby floating village – there are quite a few floating villages in Cambodia – so many areas flood during the rainy season that people plan for it and build their houses on stilts. The village was beautiful and we were the only tourists there. From our motor boat we towed along a lady in a much smaller boat that we transferred to for the floating forest.

Now this was a surprise...we’d been told we’d see a floating forest, but neither of us expected what we saw, it was one of the most surreal and beautiful places we’ve ever seen. On the tiny wooden boat the lady steered us amongst the trees in compete silence. The light was so eerie, filtering through the leaves and reflecting on the green water – it gave it the feel of a cathedral. The only noise we heard was a child singing and caught a glimpse of them rowing a boat through the trees in the distance, mesmerizing!

It turns out not everyone who visits the village goes into the forest, we spoke to some people later who had sailed straight past it, so we feel quite honoured to have been there and had it to ourselves!

In the evening we went out for some food. We’d heard about the famous Cambodian ‘happy’ pizza. That’s a pizza with ‘happy herbs!’ I know it’s naughty, but, when in Rome and all that! (I’d like to point out that Matthew had a normal pizza, only I was foolish). The pizza was nice and I felt quite happy and relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Bangkok to Cambodia: 7th October 09

Today we headed away from Bangkok. I’ve enjoyed the time here and been pleasantly surprised. Matt, on the other hand is not a big fan, finding it too bustly and hot, and is dying to get somewhere more chilled. We took the bus to the border (£4 each for a 4 hour drive) and then crossed into Cambodia and took a taxi the 2 ½ hours to Siem Reap, which is the nearest town to Angkor Wat.

Siem Reap is really nice, a small town, very green with a river running through the center and tonnes of good bars and restaurants – we’re going to stay here for at least 5 days and both think it’s going to be fab.

Our big news of the day: Matt’s Mum emailed to let us know that Mike and Jess (Matt’s bro and his wife) are expecting...TWINS!!! They’ve already got 2 kids, so this makes 4 – they’ve caught up with my side of the family already! Mike and Jess, we know you read this and in case we haven’t managed to speak to you – Congratulations! We’re both really chuffed and love you loads!

Bangkok – 5th – 6th Oct 09

Matt and I spent the last couple of days mooching around Bangkok, seeing the sights, eating nice food and being hot. Not in the sexy way – it’s sooo bloomin’ humid here!

Highlights have included:
- Visiting the grand palace complex. The temple within in it is truly stunning, I’ve never seen so many shiny things in one place before – it’s just mental. It’s like Walt Disney came to Thailand with Kylie’s diamante and sequin collection and took acid. It’s great! It makes the forbidden city in Beijing look positively drab (although this is nowhere near as big scale).

- We visited the temple of the reclining Buddha – I think it’s one of the biggest in the world- huge.

- Went to the night market at Si Lom. Hmmm, not what we expected. We were offered Ping Pong shows several times. Luckily we’ve seen ‘Priscilla, Queen of the desert’ so knew this wasn’t going to be a table tennis demonstration, and politely declined. We were also offered ‘Bang Bang’ (not a gun) and we noticed lots of the shops purported to have large displays of ...cats. Hmmmm.

Monday was Nicole’s birthday – Nicky we were thinking of you but couldn’t call as our phone wouldn’t work again. I hope you enjoyed your party and our flowers arrived?