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Asia and Australia 2017

2月 - 4月 2017
  • Coxlers On Tour
Coxlers On Tourによる77日間のアドベンチャー もっと詳しく
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  • Coxlers On TourCoxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
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    Day 31 - Hello Mate

    2017年3月10日, ベトナム ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    I fear the blog is going to be in the dull zone again today and tomorrow as we're here in Nha Trang now. Not that Nha Trang is dull in itself but it's a beach resort so I imagine a good chunk of our time will be on a lounger.

    We left the train and caught a taxi to the Cozy Condos where we're staying to be greeted by Ms Huong, Owner and Director - literally on every piece of paper or sticker where her name is mentioned it adds the Owner and Director bit. We paid to check in early as we both felt Hell Train dirty. We have a mini apartment here but I imagine chances of the kitchen being used are slim to nil.

    Once we felt clean again we ventured out for brunch and found a Greek place to eat pitas. We were both hangry so just fell into the first decent place we saw. Nha Trang is very much a Russian holiday destination. Russian companies own most of the hotels so walking around all of the business signs are in Vietnamese, English and Russian. There are some terrible English translations on signs though, see in the photos for the beach sign. Since when is a dog a grazing animal?

    Energised by brunch we made it to the beach and stayed there for the whole afternoon. It's a very beautiful beach. I slept on the lounger and Matt went and jumped in the waves. We walked up the front for a while watching people (including some creepy clowns) flying kites. There's a lot of motorcycle taxis here and for some reason when we go past they say 'hello mate' in a cockney accent. Not sure what makes us look so British - probably the pastiness.

    Dinner was Vietnamese food at a restaurant called Lanterns but we both totally hit the wall and came back after that to sleep.    もっと詳しく

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    Day 32 - Frogger

    2017年3月11日, ベトナム ⋅ ☀️ 30 °C

    We woke up and decided we should attempt to do something vaguely cultural today before getting on the loungers, though only after breakfast. We went to a cafe called Iced Coffee i.e. Matt's dream location. I had a Vietnamese hotdog. I'm not exactly sure what made it Vietnamese, it was still just a frankfurter in a bun just with a bit of chilli sauce. We attempted to find the bus which would take us to Po Nagar Cham Towers. After about 30 minutes of walking around in the 'too-hot-for-pasty-northerners' heat we gave in and got a taxi.

    The towers were built in the 8th century by the Cham people in dedication to a Goddess. They were restored in the 1990s as they'd gone pretty much to ruin. I'm not sure the visit was quite worth it but I think we would have felt bad if we spent the whole day on the beach. The photos of the site in the 30s compared to now were the most interesting part. And we did get to wear foxy grey cover jackets to hide our shoulders and knees.

    We taxi'd back and then spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach. I drank coconut water from a fresh coconut and finished watching The Crown whilst Matt went back into the waves. The most amusing part was watching the people who take payment for the sun loungers getting super strict, especially at the end of the day when people were trying to negotiate the price. The sun lounger men always won and even double handed shoo'd a couple of women who tried perching on one. Twice today people have also thought we were Russian and given us Russian drinks menus or tried to talk to us in Russian.

    After some stressful road crossing (I will be so happy to be back to the zebra crossing and green men of UK roads) we went for dinner at a delicious Indian restaurant called Ganesh. Emergency red wine was called for to recover from the roads - its like playing real life Frogger. Then it was time for another sleeper train. I like that at Nha Trang station there's no clever arrival board, just a screen where they can link a computer to and display a word document telling you the expected time (see photos). We spent our time at the station praying for a better experience than last time and overall it was, though poor Matt couldn't really sleep anyway. Our bunk mates were quiet and respectful and the cabin was clean-ish. Though the horrible shiny gold blankets which made you sweaty and slid on the floor were less pleasant. We arrived at 5am to hit the hotel for a bit more sleep. That's it for trains now and almost it for Vietnam. Just Ho Chi Minh left to go.    もっと詳しく

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    Day 33 - Sweatsville

    2017年3月13日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    After a few hours sleep we braved Ho Chi Minh city proper. It's back to being very, very hot. Hello Sweatsville. (It ended up being a double shower day). We walked out to the Emerald Pagoda. It was one of the more active, less touristy places of worship we've been to which made it more interesting. There was more burning of cardboard goods and two ponds, one with cat fish and one with turtles. Both had random bread rolls and chips thrown in which neither animal was going for. Poor things.

    The roads are even busier here however there are a lot more crossing points and more people (not all) respect the green man so getting round is a bit easier. We went for lunch at a random Vietnamese cafe where it turns out the male restroom is also the female restroom and where they wash the glasses. If you walked into the loo in the UK and they were doing that you'd phone the council but here it's all nice and normal. After lunch we went to the Vietnamese history museum telling the story of Vietnam from the prehistoric era to the start of the 20th century. I'm a little sceptical that the piles of rocks could indeed be classified with certainty as tools but apparently you could clearly see the advancing technology. There was a lot of pottery and statues but the best part was reconstructions of different battles that looked like they'd been made by a school class for a history project. Lots of faux blood and spears through little plasticine models. Also on display was an actual mummified body of a woman then found a few years ago - nice.

    We dragged ourselves back to the air con hotel. According to the (I'm sure reliable) Apple Health app since we started our trip in February we've walked over 300km! I should be skinny as a rake by now but I think we're cancelling it out with all the iced chocolate drinks and fruit smoothies. We were going to attempt the cinema but I'm pretty confident we both would have fallen asleep so we went for dinner instead at a place round the corner. The waitress was hilariously sullen and had to explain to me how to eat my food (more leaf wrapping) which clearly brought her no joy whatsoever. Others learnings were that an iced yoghurt is not frozen yoghurt as you might guess but a glass of yoghurt with ice in. Go figure.    もっと詳しく

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  • Coxlers On TourCoxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017
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    Day 34 - Noir

    2017年3月13日, ベトナム ⋅ ⛅ 31 °C

    By (un) popular demand it's Matt back as guest editor today. After some relaxing days where we hadn't done a great deal I get to write about what's been a really interesting day.

    Firstly we went on a free walking tour. We've done a lot of these in various countries where there's no set fee but you pay what you think it's worth. This was slightly different in that it is actually free as your guide is a local student who's studying tourism and they use the tour as a way of improving their English. Our guide was Huey (not sure of the spelling) and we paid him anyway. His English was really good and he took us around some local landmarks such as the Opera House (French built and an impressive building) and the Post Office building (French again and looks like a train station). He then takes you to either the Reunification Palace or the War Remnants Museum. We went for the former as we wanted to go to the war museum later (see below). The Palace was pretty good but full of communist propaganda and digs at the south and Americans.

    It was interesting taking to Huey about communism. Vietnam is one of only five communism countries left (try and think of the others comrades, answers at the end) and he was openly not a fan. He said most of the south don't like it whereas the north still worship old Uncle Ho. He said support for it amongst the young in particular is low and he hoped it would change to a democracy in the not too distant future. He also talked about their closer ties with Japan who are helping fund the Metro that's being built which is a move away from the usual Chinese investment (clue for the one of the answers here).

    After the tour ended we were so hot so took refuge again in the nearest air conned cafe. HCMC is slowly melting us, 34 degrees again today. Appreciate that the locals are much more accustomed to the heat than us but we saw a bloke today wearing a wooly hat in the middle of the day. We then had some street food at Ben Thanh street food market, it's street food but a bit sanitised (think food court at a shopping centre) but was still nice.

    This afternoon was spent at the war museum. Quite harrowing and some really horrific images. It's done with a major slant towards the north Vietnamese and the Viet Cong as you'd expect but still highlighted the horrors of war and was quite hard viewing at times. Particularly the bits about Agent Orange (where the Americans dropped chemicals to damage the jungle the Vietnamese were using as cover and which went on to cause horrific birth defects for generations afterwards) and the confirmed atrocities committed by US soldiers against civilians. Despite it being tough to see glad we went, it really wasn't that long ago and shows what the people here have had to deal with.

    So on to the evening and Helen played a blinder (terrible pun intended) as she'd discovered HCCM has one of the dine in the dark restaurants, it's called Noir and owned by a Dutch bloke. There's a few of these popped up in London but for anyone not familiar with them you dine in the dark funnily enough. All the waiters are blind or sight impaired and you literally can't see anything while you eat (the chefs can see however which is one of the FAQ's for confused visitors). Someone had also asked what the dress code was.

    It's a set menu with your only choice being east or west inspired. We chose east and after an introductory cocktail you play a game blindfolded where you have to put different shaped blocks in the correct places to get used to doing stuff in the dark. After that you're introduced to your waiter (ours was Tum) who takes you in convoy to your table with your hand on the shoulder of the person in front. It is literally pitch black to the point where you can't see your hand in front of your face.

    Once seated the food arrives. We got four starters, three mains and three desserts. It was all delicious and it was fun trying to avoid spilling food everywhere and also guess what you're eating. After you've finished you go back in to the light and an explanation of each dish. We were very mixed at guessing. Helen correctly picked out the tuna dish which is often misidentified apparently but I thought one was pork crackling or something similar but it was actually a veggie rice cake.

    It was a bit pricey by Vietnam standards (around £75 total including drinks) but much cheaper than the ones back home and definitely money well spent. It was a really good experience and a right laugh. As well as employing lots of visually impaired people many of the other staff were deaf and/or mute. We were speaking to the manager afterwards and he said how difficult it is for people with a sight or hearing issue just to get around in Vietnam.

    After dinner we went over to a roof top bar at a hotel right in the middle of the backpackers area in district 1 before we called it a night.

    Only a day and a bit left in Vietnam. It's been fun and a lot of contrasts. Hanoi and HCMC are interesting but a bit crazy in a Bangkok kind of way. Hoi An was such a cool place and Nha Trang was great for a relax on the beach. Glad we've been to them all but the quieter places like Chang Mai, Luang Prabang and Hoi An are still my favourites of the trip so far. We fly to Cambodia tomorrow, new country for both of us and looking forward to it. We're now five weeks in with six to go, it's weird, feels like it's flying by in some ways but thinking back to Hong Kong it seems ages ago.

    The Cheltenham festival starts today (Tuesday) which means Helen will definitely be back on the blog as I'm hoping to cash in some of my cooking class credits to try and watch the races on my phone which will start at 8.30pm here.

    So the answers are:

    Vietnam
    China
    North Korea
    Laos
    Cuba

    The power of five thousand suns and a free statue of Uncle Ho if you got all five. Down you Imperialist pig if you only got one!    もっと詳しく

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    Day 35 - The Start of Matt's Christmas

    2017年3月15日, ベトナム ⋅ ☀️ 33 °C

    It's Helen back again. From today we lose Matt to Cheltenham AKA 'Matt's Christmas'. I made the grave error of not negotiating exactly what I'd need to give him in return for the cooking classing and now I have my answer - being home for 8pm every night so he can watch it.

    We started the day skipping the hotel breakfast and heading out for a Banh Mi at a place nearby that we'd heard was good. On the way we saw a group of men knocking down a building with sledgehammers and by the time we came back later in the morning it was completely gone. I imagine the building partly melting as I certainly was. The Banh Mi place was a typical small seats on the street experience and had 2 options on the menu. An already constructed sandwich or a baguette which came with the contents plus a couple of eggs and some strange fish cake things in a bowl. Matt had the former and I the latter. It was pretty decent, I reckon it ranks at number 3 in my Banh Mi league so far. And all in all cost less than £4 for the two of us with drinks.

    After breakfast we went to the Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine. As you do. We went round with a guide called Ho and a small group which included a Western doctor taking notes in a small note pad. We learnt about the history of traditional medicine, the key pioneers and the tools and ingredients. I liked seeing all the ingredients and what they supposedly helped with, including some scary looking ones I'm pretty sure in my chemistry learnings we were told were very toxic. Apparently in many hospitals in Vietnam you can still chose whether you want to be treated by traditional or Western medicine. Plus as a treat we watched a hilarious propaganda video which randomly had an instrumental of the Christmas song Up On The Housetop (made famous by the Jackson 5) as the intro. Ho tried to guess Matt's job - no idea why - and started at soldier then engineer then clearly wanting to hedge his bets (no pun intended) went for businessman. There's been several times here that men have taken an interest in Matt's size (plus a woman in a coffee shop who told him he had a nice smile and asked if he was married, I should have left him with her).

    We had some meatball/meat noodle soup for lunch. Here in HCMC they provide wet wipes at the start of a meal but if you open them they charge you. (There's no warning of this in the restaurant) and as I'm affectionately known as 'Cut Price Coxy' I refuse to succumb despite having half a bowl of noodles on my face. Luckily we were near the hotel so I went there to wash my face - 10p well saved!

    In the afternoon we took an Uber to the Bitexco Tower. I LOVE that they have Uber here. It's very very cheap and no getting scammed on price or the driver taking a long route (I've been watching on google maps and seen them do it then they argue a street is one way when you pull them up on it - lies!). CPC strikes again and I refused to pay 200K each (about £8) to just go to the viewing platform on the 68th floor when you can just buy an overpriced jug of draft beer for 200K and get a free cheapy garlic bread on the 51st. Once you get past the 20th floor surely it doesn't make much difference to the view anyway? The views were pretty good, fun to see where we've been but there's not a lot of distinguishable landmarks here that you can see. Though maybe you could from 68.

    There's a cinema in the tower so we went there to watch Logan in the air con - much better than John Wick 2. A quick dinner at the sanitised hipster street food area and we Uber'd back with seconds to spare for Cheltenham. I read my Lonely Planet and Emma - cinema and Austen is what being in a different city is all about eh?    もっと詳しく

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  • Coxlers On TourCoxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017

    Day 36 - 60p Beer and Pesto

    2017年3月15日, カンボジア ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    Day 35 brings us to a new country - Cambodia. We left Ho Chi Minh with a last sandwich and just about scraped out of the country after queuing at the slowest check in desk then having immigration question our visas and having to get a 2nd opinion from a manager. We had the same problem with the British Gov recommended visa on the way in, surely on the way out though they shouldn't care quite so much? Luckily manager said yes and we quick footed it to the gate only to stand in the airport transfer oven, sorry I mean bus, while people faffed around looking at waving lucky cats and overpriced dried fruit.

    A bumpy 40 minute plane ride over the border we arrived in Phnom Penh and our waiting taxi. The temperature has risen again and even in the 5 minutes it took us to get from the hotel to a bar to grab some food left us glowing with sweat. At least the bar had 60p happy hour beer. And pesto! (How I've missed you green heaven). And that's pretty much how the rest of the evening continued. We had a nice dinner at a place called Mok Mony. It has an interesting concept that they'd rather you order out of your comfort zone than play it safe just so you don't waste food/money/be hungry so they have a no questions asked returns system. Any sent back food they say they box up and give to the local homeless or street kids. I get guilty for not sending mine back but it was too delicious! After dinner as the wifi in the hotel isn't strong enough for Matt's Cheltenham fix we traipsed bats till we found somewhere which did. Luckily they had £2 red wine to entertain me.

    A quiet day today so inspired by Matt's quiz when he guest edited I've put a photo on which I took from a rooftop bar which is like a bingo game of South East Asia sights. I've mentioned most in the blog so see how many you can get.    もっと詳しく

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  • Coxlers On TourCoxlers On TourAsia and Australia 2017

    Day 37 - Remembrance

    2017年3月17日, カンボジア ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    If you're in Phnom Penh it almost goes without saying that you should go to Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum (S21) and the Killing Fields. I'll be honest, it's probably only in the last few years from other friends coming to Cambodia that I even really heard about the genocide here in the 70s, it's not something I learnt about at school and isn't so widely talked about in the West in general. To give a top line, in 1975 Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took political control in Cambodia and forced everyone out of the cities to a horrific life of forced labour in the farms. Any one perceived to be intelligent (even just people who wore glasses or had soft hands), anyone from different minority races, any one religious was imprisoned, tortured and killed. No one was allowed out, borders were covered with landmines and Cambodians abroad were even called back under false pretences to be killed. It's thought up to 3 million people were killed over their less than 4 years in power which was a quarter of the population.

    We went to S21 first. Before it was a torture prison S21 was a school. People were brought here and tortured into making false confessions about their spy/CIA connections, despite most of them not having a clue who the CIA were. There was an excellent audio tour here which guided you around from room to room which had exhibits and items in them and told real life stories from victim's families and the handful of survivors. Most harrowing were the photographs of the prisoners, both when they entered the prison and in some cases when they were killed here (usually accidentally through the torture, purposeful killing wasn't done much on site). Everything was very well documented by the Khmer Rouge, they even had some of the prisoners who were artists draw scenes of what was happening. The site is now a UNESCO site and there is a very strong message of keeping the memories with you in the hope the world will not see an event like this again.

    Next we went to the Killing Fields. Once S21 prisoners had made their confessions there were brought here to be killed almost immediately. The guards waited until night time, put loud music on so those outside couldn't hear anything and basically battered people to death as bullets were expensive. Victims were put into mass graves. Men, women, children, babies - it didn't matter. This Killing Field was one of hundreds around the county. It's actually very peaceful here now, which is the intention. The site is being preserved as a memorial. Bodies have been removed (almost 9000) and all the skulls put into a beautiful memorial stupa.

    It felt wrong to take photos but I did take one of the 'rules board' at S21 which I think sums up how brutal and deranged the Khmer Rouge were. It was a very sad morning but we're glad that we came here. There was a message of remembering the past but not letting it define Cambodia today which is very powerful.

    We came back to the hotel for a couple of hours to escape the afternoon heat and to plan our last couple of weeks in Asia (yikes) then got a tuk tuk to the river. I don't mind the tuk tuk situation quite so much here. There's so so many and you get asked if you want one repeatedly even if you just said no to 5 of their friends, which is quite annoying but there's a rough idea on a fair fare (cheap) and everyone is jovial through out the bartering. Due to what happened in the 70s the population here is skewed young and everywhere on the river are groups of young people eating, chatting, playing football or even doing an aerobics class. We went for dinner at a tapas place which is run by an NGO that train former street children in chef and service skills. The food was amazing, especially the chocolate cheesecake. They also have a shop next door where they sell local crafts and you can get your nails done. It was a great concept. Child exploitation is still a big problem in many areas of SE Asia with some parents relying on sending their kids to the streets to sell things as more money can be made this way than by them being in school so there's kids getting no education or skills for their adulthood.

    After dinner we went on the Cheltenham Quality Wifi Hunt. We found a bar with a covers band which was sufficient. I'm not entirely sure they were singing the right words to their Amy Winehouse and Lionel Richie covers but the rough syllables were there. I sat and caught up on the January edition of Asia Life magazine whilst Matt watched the horses until he felt sorry enough for me to take me back to the hotel - though he did then leave me there to go to the bar across the road. One more day....    もっと詳しく

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    Day 39 - Mind The Cows

    2017年3月18日, カンボジア ⋅ ⛅ 28 °C

    A day mainly of travel today so not a lot to report. After much confusion over our hotel bill where we were being honest and adding things on for them that their notebook system let them down on ('our laundry was 6kg not 2kg, we had breakfast on Thursday') and a quick Costa we took a small bus to our big bus to take us on the 6 hour drive to Siem Reap. Some key highlights:

    - The bus was very quiet so we didn't have to sit on the narrow 'built for smaller people' seats next to each other.
    - The complementary squashed, pre packaged pain au chocolat was pretty good.
    - We had to emergency stop twice for cows crossing the road.
    - We saw a lot of kitten and chickens.
    - A strange fellow passenger stared at Matt whilst they were at neighbouring urinals at the rest stop.

    We made it to our hotel and went for a swim in the lovely pool. We resisted the swim up bar for today, but I'm sure we'll be back. The bed had not only towel art but also my name written in leaves which was pretty impressive. We went on an ATM hunt and I got befriended by children who kept giving me fist bumps and high fives then showing me their play fighting skills then had dinner at the hotel and retired to bed early ready for our 4am alarm.... tomorrow Angkor Wat.    もっと詳しく

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    Day 38 - The Heat Always Wins

    2017年3月18日, カンボジア ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    We started the day early-ish in an attempt to beat the heat (spoiler alert - the heat always wins) and headed for breakfast at a place called The Shop. Our hotel's manager is very chatty and is always offering us tips. Today's was basically 'don't go the way you know to walk to town, go this way down the backstreets and see how real people live.' Obviously we couldn't not take his advice and ended up getting lost whilst people doing their laundry and going about their lives looked puzzled. But luckily the manager was following us (?!) and put us on the right path. At The Shop You could get a regularly named breakfast (like Eggs Benedict which I had) or a celebrity named fun breakfast. Matt had the David Beckham. Rather than having any link to football or sarongs it seems it was only named after DB cause he's English. You could also have a Jackie Chan, a Gerard Depardieu or a Jane Fonda.

    Next up was the Royal Palace. It's like Bangkok's Royal Palace except much more expensive to get in, less crowded and less spectacular. It was fine, I liked the Angkor Wat model and the gates but otherwise same same. And it was horrifically hot even at 10am so we spent a chunk of our time there sitting on a step and the rest of the time sighing and whinging. They did have some beautifully air conditioned exhibition rooms featuring elephant boxes (literally hundreds of elephant shaped trinket boxes) and more creepy mannequins and models.

    After the Palace we went to the National Museum. It had the most painful audio tour ever. There were 237 audio tour stops, each in front on a statue or painting (mainly statues). Each audio description was on average 2 minutes long and we were not willing to spend 474 minutes listening to every stop especially as the first 20 seconds was a musical intro and a guy very slowly reading the exhibit name. The most fun part was watching people pose in the garden for photos e.g. sniffing flowers or holding an arm up seductively. I think we managed less than an hour before we could feign interest in yet another broken statue no longer and went for lunch at a Khmer restaurant called Kabbas. It was cheap and delicious. I had Amok and Matt had Lok Lek, traditional Cambodian dishes I'd like to learn to make (and maybe will). We tuk tuk'd back and spent the next hour or 2 air conning.

    At 4.30 we were picked up for a sunset boat trip. It was free beer and soft drinks but we were pretty much the only people in the Brit frame of mind of 'get your money's worth'. Our tour guide was a tourism student and gave a fast paced and detailed guide to the rivers and surrounding buildings. There is a lot of investment happening in Cambodia and so much construction going on. It'll be a very different place in 5 years time. Sadly it was pretty cloudy so the sunset happened a little earlier for us than expected but was still a fun trip.

    We did a post-boat geocache and then had some burgers and fries on the walk home. I think I've eaten more burgers this trip than I do in a typical year. When you're a tourist eating local food every day I think you brain goes into rebellion mode and craves something else. (That or I just want the cheese). We walked back to near our hotel and went to the 'secret bar' next door that the helpful manager obviously told us about. It was behind what looked like an old coke machine and was nice and hipster inside. There was a guitar and singer duet for a while who were great and the cocktails were excellent. Matt could even get Cheltenham signal!

    A lot of blogs and guidebooks were read said most people rush a couple of days in Phnom Penh and quickly move on as it's nothing special but we definitely could stay longer. However it's off to Siem Reap tomorrow and past the half way point of our trip. Eek!    もっと詳しく

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    Day 40 - Angkor Part 1

    2017年3月19日, カンボジア ⋅ ⛅ 33 °C

    We managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 4.15am on the promise of an apparently bucket list sunrise over Angkor Wat. Loyal readers may remember that last time we got up for a sun rise (Halong Bay) we saw no sun and got very grumpy so we hoped for better. We met our Tuk Tuk driver Mr Smarty at 4.45am and proceeded to buy tickets (printed with our 'we shouldn't be awake yet' faces) and join the crowds at Angkor Wat lake side. There were hundreds of people already there but we managed to get a fairly good spot. It's very much a leave an inch and someone will fill it kind of place and maybe it's me, or maybe we came on an off day or maybe it's standing so close to people when it's already hot and humid that you're sweating at 5am but I thought the sunrise was kind of...meh. (Though in hindsight looking at the pictures I think it was probably me being grumpy). However from there on it was definitely not meh.

    Getting there early did mean we were there as they opened up Angkor Wat itself at precisely 6.10am and were at the front of the queue to go up to the very top. They only let 100 people up at a time and then it's one in one out and there were at least 100 people behind us when it opened precisely at 6.40. It's hard to put into words and 6 pictures how amazing it in Angkor Wat and all the temples. All the old carvings are so intricate and there are thousands of them. There's so many pathways and rooms to discover than even though there's hundreds (thousands?) of people there you can find somewhere quiet. Comedy moment of the morning (well funny to us, we were hot and it was early) though was that when we came down the steps from the top I had to cling on to the rail cause it was steep, but the railings were rusty and my hands were pure orange. Luckily I had wet wipes so got work on cleaning them but I noticed a man staring from about 2 feet away at me. I got up and moved as it was making me very uncomfortable and he followed me and asked what I'd done to my hands. I tried to explain but he didn't speak much English. Next thing he moved away and we heard his phone in Queen's English go 'Rusty' really loudly. I'm glad we could educate someone in the lesser known words of the English language.

    I won't bore you all right now with the ins and outs of all 11 of the temples we are visiting here across the 2 days, I'll save that for the slide show you have to watch when we get back (projector will be hired) but some key bits.

    After Angkor Wat we went to Angkor Thom, which was the old capital city. We spent the whole morning going 'I can't believe it's only {insert time here}' so by the time we got there it felt like 2pm but was probably about 7.30am. The big draw of Angkor Thom is Bayon temple which has 54 pillars each with a giant carved face on the side. Bayon was very busy with big tour groups doing their best posing against rocks but we managed to find a couple of corners to breathe. We even pulled some poses ourselves mainly in the huge frames which are a common feature throughout. A lot of the temples at Angkor are from around the 12th century so they're not all in one piece and a lot are undergoing restoration so plenty of chances for moody in the ruins pics. We explored some of the other buildings and terraced of Angkor Thom including some great corridors of carvings which were fun. There are a lot of make shift stairs in the rocks at the temples so there was a lot of monkey crawling up and sliding on bum downs (less easy when the rock is seemingly on fire)

    We went to another's beautiful bonus temple [Full disclosure. There's going to be some times I respectfully refer to somewhere we went as a bonus temple as I can't remember what they were called.] on the way one of the other big draws of the Angkor Complex, Ta Prohm. It's where some of the film version of Tomb Raider was filmed. Mr Smarty came with us in to this one to give us a guided tour/take photographs of us in front of everything using tricks I didn't know existed - upwards panorama anyone? Apparently a lot of carvings and statues in this temple, and the others in general, were destroyed or stolen during the civil war as religion was banned and sites were abandoned for a long time which gave the chance for huge trees to grow in cracks in walls and buildings which was spectacular to see. It was good having Mr Smarty with us as it was busy again but he knew the best way round and had no qualms about telling people they were taking photos too slowly or cutting in on queues. He also showed us an amazing nature spectacle of the entrance to an underground bee hive. It looks like a hose pipe full of bees, so incredible/terrifying. Watch where you sit on rocks...

    We managed to cram all of that in to 8 hours which made it only lunch time and we were both too hot to carry on and came back to the hotel for lunch and to hit the pool/bar in the pool. Then it was time for the circus. Not a traditional circus in any way, shape or form but one set up years ago as an off shoot of an arts school that was trying to get kids living in poverty into some form of alternate education. They started just getting the kids drawing but found it didn't engage them so started teaching music and circus skills. Thus Phare Circus was born. They school now can afford to take 1200 kids per year into the school (which is a scarily large number and a fraction of the kids in poverty here) and a lot of them become professional performers bringing in an income. Our show was about a group of school friends who are haunted by two ghosts and have to learn to face their fears if they want to be rid of them. It's a very funny show including juggling, amazing acrobatics and spot on music to accompany every move. There was a guy who could literally get his leg straight up parallel to his torso and behind his head - a bit disturbing. We really enjoyed it.

    Another not quite so early start tomorrow for Angkor Temples Day 2.    もっと詳しく

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