Sorry its late, again...

We're no longer in Cambodia but I'll try to finish off the blogs from then! In the last entry we were beginning our temple marathon. We left Kom Pong Thom to head for Siem Reap, got there early afternoon and I wasn't feeling too clever so it ended up being quite a lazy day, we did however organise ourselves to go to Koh Ker the following morning. It was 120km to get there in a 4x4 and it was only the 3 of us going. The main temple there was really impressive, a 40m high pyramid in the middle of the jungle, unfortunately we weren't allowed to climb it but just seeing it was pretty cool, and because it was so far away there was nearly no one there. They only finished clearing the Khmer Rouge mines around the Koh Ker temple complex quite recently, they were still getting rid of some of them in 2007. We spent about 3 hours around the Koh Ker area looking at all the other temples (camera ran out of battery so not many pictures). Got back to Siem Reap that evening and decided we'd be healthy for a few days and use bikes to get around the Angkor temples. We bought a 3 day pass to the Angkor temples when we got up early the next morning to go and watch the sunrise over Angkor Wat, unfortunately it was drizzling the whole time we were there and there was no sign of the sun at all, it just slowly got lighter. Got a tuk tuk back to Siem Reap for some breakfast and to pick the bikes up, unfortunately we had a bit of a lie down and it ended up being about 11am before we got back out on the bikes. We decided that seeing as Angkor Wat is supposed to be the main event as it were, we would look at all the other temples around Angkor (There are a lot) and then finish up with Angkor Wat as the grand finale. The first main one we went to was Bayon in Angkor Thom. This is quite a big building and its covered with the faces of the king who ordered it to be built. Apparently all of the temples were deconstructed and the stones were laid out in the forest, its only recently that they have reconstructed them, some of them are still in the process of being reconstructed. There are a lot of different temples in Angkor Thom (a walled region) so for day 1 we stayed around there and tried to see all the temples that it had to offer us. Cycled about 20km and after our early sunrise start we were pretty tired by the end of the day. Got soaking wet on the road back into Siem Reap but it did cool us down if nothing else.
Day 2 started with much better weather, although we couldn't be bothered getting up for sunrise again. Hopped back on the bikes again and did some temples that were a little further afield. This included the temple that the tomb raider film was filmed at, and for myself and Colm that was our favourite one, it was much less polished than the other temples we had seen and generally seemed to have more charachter than the other ones that we saw. We finished the day at Angkor Wat for sunset and realised that it wasn't really the best place to watch the sunset (couple of unseccesful days as far as the sun was concerned). Angkor Wat was impressive, it is definately the best preserved of the temples and its massive (Biggest religous building in the world I was told), but as I said before, it wasn't our favourite, just didn't quite have the charachter that some of the others did. We managed another 30km on day 2 and decided that we were pretty much templed out and didn't see the need to stay for the last day of our 3 day pass so we headed to Kratie to see Irawaddy dolphins (fresh water) and to meet up with Rob!

Hopefully all is well at home, sorry if photobuckets annoying anyone, its annoying me, keeps putting the pictures in daft orders and changing it around with me telling it to!

Will try and do the blog for the rest of Cambodia soon!

Its been a while...

Seems like the last blog was from when we were still in Vietnam, I didn't realise it had been such a long time! We got the ferry off Phu Quoc to Ha Tien and got on the back of a moped each to get across the border into Kep on the South Coast of Cambodia. You can immediately see the difference in development between Vietnam and Cambodia, here only the main trunk roads between a few towns are paved, the rest of them are dirt tracks ranging from smooth to near enough inpassable, although the busses still manage to fly along the supposedly inpassable roads. Kep was really quiet, we met up with Kris again there (Spent Christmas and New Year with him) and have since decided to all carry on together as we're all on a similar time scale! From Kep we took a trip out to Rabbit and Snake Islands, we snorkelled around snake Island, not something Colm or I had done before, it was good fun, although I found it a bit disconcerting when it got almost too shallow to swim over the top of the coral, had visions of getting stuck...! From there we went back to Rabbit Island (There only about 15mins off the coast, and about the same apart) and spent the night in 2 little bungalows! It was really nice and personally I preferred it to Phu Quoc. The next day we left Rabbit Island and headed to Kampot, spent the night there and booked ourselves onto a tour to Bokor Hill station. Cost us $22 (Pretty much everything is done in dollars here rather than the local Riel) and they took us to the bottom of the hill, we then trekked up for about 4 hours, getting in a truck at the top to be transported along the top of the hill to the hill station. It was built by the french in the 1920's as a retreat to get away from the heat, it was a very sweaty climb up but it was noticebly cooler at the top. Spent a few hours there and then the truck bought us back to the point it picked us up from and then we trekked back down again, only took about 2.5 hours on the way back down. That evening after the trek we left for Sihanoukville. We spent 2 full days there and had all sorts of grand plans for going to a national park and doing some more trekking, that sort of fell by the wayside in the end though, we ended up spending our 2 days drinking in cocktails in a bar on the beach and going to bed early! Had a good time though, being pestered by people to have bracelets made and buy fruit (we did both in the end). On day 3 we got up at about 6am and got the bus out of town to the capital, Pnomh Penh. Rob met up with Mao when we got there, the Cambodian who took him around last 2 years ago last he was in Cambodia. He took us for a Cambodian barbecue, you basically get the food (Beef and Seafood we had) bought to the table along with the veg and you all cook it together on a gas hotplate in the middle of the table. The picture of Rob and Colm is on the way back to our guest house after the BBQ. The following day we had a trip out to the shooting range where Rob had a pop with a rifle but the rest of us decided it was a bit too expensive. On the way back Rob went to see Mao again and Colm, Kris and I went to the National museum and the Royal palace. There are a lot of Hindu and Buddhist statues in the National Museum that have been removed from temples around the country for safe keeping, (The Khmer Rouge damaged a lot of them during their rule) most of the temples now have replicas in them. The Royal Palace was quite impressive however at this point I wasn't feeling too well, was having stomach cramps and the like so I probably wasn't in quite the right frame of mind to appreciate it fully.

I'll try and do another post in the next few days to bring everyone completely up to date with all our temple viewing, etc!

Hopefully talk to you all soon.

Paul, Colm and Rob.

ps. Simon, have you sold that van yet, you've been missing out lad!?!

Mekong and Phu Quoc

Just a quick post, tried to put some pictures on but the virus software on the computer I'm using just quarantined half of my pictures, taken me half an hour to get them back on the memory card, don't fancy trying again really!! We left Saigon for Can Tho spent a very hot 4 hours in a minibus but apart from that it was an uneventful trip. Decided that evening that we should still have enough time to get to the island of Phu Quoc for a few days. The next morning we were all up at 4.45am to go on a tour of the Mekong delta, had a great guide who made the tour for us, he took us up the river to a couple of different floating markets, showed us a noodle factory and then took us for lunch on the way back, I had 'Elephants ear fish'! We left that afternoon for Rach Gia which is the port town that the ferry to Phu Quoc leaves from. Spent the night there and then got the ferry the following morning, they were showing Rambo films on the ferry, something we weren't expecting. We're sharing 2 single beds between the 3 of us on Phu Quoc at the moment so its a bit cosy, the accomodation we've got is only 100m from the beach. The plan for today was to go on a deep sea fishing and snorkelling trip but unfortunately both Colm and I had some sort of bug overnight, both had bad diorrhea and vomiting, we both seem to be pretty much over it now though. Tomorrow we get the ferry off Phu Quoc to Ha Tien on the Vietnam/Cambodia border, then its onto the back of a moped each to get to Kep on the South coast of Cambodia. Hope everyone is coping with the arctic conditions back at home and Simon hopefully your throat is better, hopefully we'll see you back here soonish!

Paul Colm and Rob x

Chuck Mung Nam Moi.... (HAPPY NEW YEAR)

Got to Dalat on boxing day evening and got quite an early night, the Christmas celebrations had taken their toll a bit! Next day we hopped on mopeds again and headed out of Dalat to a waterfall first and then a bit further to another mountain pass, didn't ride the whole of the pass in the end as the roads were a bit dodgy and we were running out of time to get back to Dalat in the daylight. Had a great day though, the following day we decided to do a bit of walking, did a cable car ride down to a lake that the french made when they used to be in Dalat. Was really pretty, had some good food in a little place overlooking the lake. Went to a restaraunt in Dalat thatevening and had Ostritch for the first time, its really nice, well worth a try, will be looking out for more when we get to Oz!

Got up early the next day for the bus from Dalat to Mue Ne which is back on the coast again. Mue Ne was expensive, paid $25 for a room for the 3 of us, although they did have a nice pool which sort of made up for the outlay. Next day we went to see the sand dunes, off on the mopeds, again... The dunes were really good, there were 2 sets, Red Dunes and White dunes, got pestered the whole time by kids trying to get us to slide down the dunes on mats. Got back to Mue Ne that afternoon and we were straight on the bus, weren't too impressed with Mue Ne really although the dunes did make up for it. Got the bus from there to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City now) and arrived at about 10pm, went for a quick bite to eat and a drink and then to bed. New years eve the next day, Colm and I went on a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels, which are the tunnels the Viet Cong used when fighting against the Americans. The tunnels here are a lot smaller than the tunnels in the DMZ which were used to hide from the bombs.

Went to a few different bars for our New Years party with Chris and Hannah who we've met in a few different places now. Midnight was spent at a crossroads with loads of other people and lots of foam being sprayed about. Had a really good night. Today is new years day, been a fairly slow day, went to the Rex hotel (where Good Morning Vietnam was recorded apparently) and had a drink. The square where Top Gear started their Vietnam tour is just outside it.

Tomorrow were off to do a bit of sightseeing round Saigon and then it'll be off to the Mekong Delta we think!

Happy New year everyone, its going to be a good one!

Paul, Colm and Rob