When we booked our tickets to Bangkok we had checked, double checked and checked again that it was in fact a coach, not a minibus. The last thing we all wanted was another nine or something hours in a minibus. We were assured, reassured and re-reassured that it was a coach. When a minibus turned up it was explained away, this minibus would take us to the coach station where we would board our coach to the border; it didn’t. This minibus was smaller than the one we had taken to Siem Reap and had more people aboard, which of course meant more luggage; the only redeeming feature of this torture truck was that everybody on it was nice (and when I say nice I of course mean English). Tom, Helen and Lauren, with whom we had partied with were all aboard and another three girls (who had also lived and studied in Manchester at the same time Tom, Helen and I) completed the group. (There was a weird guy on the bus but he sat next to the driver so we didn’t have to communicate with him.) The good company and conversation got us to the border before I had a chance to even think about how cramped I was, we crossed the border by foot which was a pain in the arse but meant we had a small amount of time to get noodles, ice cream and have a shit. (Although the pad thai I had ordered turned into fried rice because the pre-prepared noodles had finished and the vendor couldn’t be arsed to make any more (although it takes about three minutes cook from scratch).) A complicated coloured and numbered sticker system dictated what minibus we then had to get on, which became a right palaver when friends were being put on separate buses to one another. I found our bus (Lucy, Simon and I had all been allocated the same bus) and immediately reserved a front row seat, even my elongated, gangly legs could be fully extended here - a polar opposite to the last bus. After hours in a near horizontal state, (only moving for the obligatory service station stops the driver insisted on) watching movies on my laptop we were in Bangkok. Not a bad journey for minibus I thought – the second leg at least.We checked back into Rainbow Hostel and rested - this travelling is tiring work you know?!

That evening we met up with Tom and Helen, who were also staying in Rainbow and Robbie and Jo, who are family friends of Lucy’s. We ate at a restaurant on Ram Buttri which was mediocre at best, but filled the gap I suppose. Still having plenty to stay to one another and many more stories to share we accompanied Robbie and Jo back to their hotel for some more drinks; after what seemed like no time at all it was half one – the hours having disappeared into many a beer bottle by now. Robbie and Jo called it a night and the five of us left standing went onward to ‘the zoo’ as Robbie calls it, the Khao San Road to you and me. This was Mackie’s and my third time in Bangkok, and we thought we knew the drill by now; how wrong we were. It was busier and livelier than we had ever seen it, and a sense of carnival reigned down this infamous street. Desperate to join the party we sat at the first pop up bar we found and ordered our buckets of booze. Sharing every bucket meant that as soon as one arrived it was emptied, with a frantic haste of slurping and sucking; in hindsight this proved an appalling method of alcohol consumption, as the results were extreme. We did search for a second bar to visit, but none could compete on value or music as our first hurried choice. We returned with our tails between our legs full of the knowledge that variety is not the spice of life after all, and ordered yet more buckets.

When the main night club closed it only fueled the street party vibe, throwing hundreds of drunken tourists into the arms of the street vendors, who have now swapped there nik naks and souvenirs for hard liquor (sold by the bucket of course!). What happened next is anyone guess really, I did bump into two of the three girls from the minibus and had a D&M with a random Thai guy, but the next thing I remember is waking up not feeling so good.

After another chocolate pancake breakfast (I know the fruit option is better for you but I can’t turn down chocolate pancakes!) and Inception (HBO on in the bar is not a good motivator to get out and see the city) we headed to the post office to send our wad of postcards. Lucy was in a strop because Simon, Lea and I wanted to walk to the post office and she wanted to get a tuktuk, she demonstrated this by ensuring she was at least ten steps ahead of us. She complained it was because of her heavy bag (she wanted to send some souvenirs home – although it was too expensive in the end) but refused several offers from me to carry it – women eh? After I paid (nearly eight Dollars!) for my stamps the lady asked for me to hand her my postcards, which she then just put to one side, when she did the same with Lucy’s we were very skeptical whether those postcards were going in the postbox or the bin – only time will tell I guess. Once Lucy had returned her souvenirs to Garden Village (a good thirty paces in front of us by now) her mood began to slowly lighten, we visited all the markets around the town but bought nothing; the old market bloody stunk, we have been in Asia a while now and can deal with a pong but this was something else I tell you! As it was another scorcher and we had been walking all morning we went to one of the many Dr Fish foot massage places, this one offered a free beer - so it would have been rude not to really!

After packing and cutting my hair we went to the Sunset Bar (not seeing a sunset for the final time) and arranged to meet up with some of our Siem Reap ‘friends’ later on. We made a conscious effort to leave Garden Village and eat somewhere different for tea choosing the restaurant that had been touting for our business every time we had walked past. The menus in this place where epic but after scrolling through most of it I found a couple of Andong Tuek specials that I just had to have again (pork filled tomatoes and Eggplant). Before our food was served cold moist flannels were provided, which in my opinion make it a classy joint, and the food lived up to that standard – although, I was ready to burst after I finished both my main courses. Another massage at the night market was just what the doctor ordered and they were thrilled to see us again. These ladies were another set of people who loved our ‘fluent’ Khmer; after I asked my girls name and how she was she went on for about five minutes before I had to interrupt to let her know the true extent of my linguistic prowess. Our final stop of the night was Tuktuk bar where Andrea (our mate for the night) got a round in, weyhey!

22.08.2012 Angkor Wat Is All The Fuss About?

It was another early start for us as we were heading to Angkor Wat, not crazy early like these lunatics that go at four am to watch the sun rise – but early enough. The tuktuk we had hired for the day took us to Angkor Wat, Ta Phrom, Angkor Thom, Bayon, and the Elephant Terrace amongst others, I forget. You can call me uncultured or whatever else you want but temples really don’t do it for me, and I only visited this one because to go to Siem Reap and not visit it would be tantamount to a crime. When people tell me they have spent three days there and could have done more I’m almost lost for words, almost. The four hours I spent there was more than enough for me (it was a hot day) and we only stopped at some temples because our driver insisted (finding somewhere out of sight to sit until we enough time had passed to pretend like we had walked around). Having said that Ta Phrom was cool, this temple has been swallowed by the jungle (although they do maintain it to allow easy access for tourists) and the various trees and roots sprouting from the stone work did interest me, not to mention Tomb Raider was filmed there! Bayon was also fascinating (for fifteen minutes, not the recommended ninety) with its hundreds of faces as was some of the mythology surrounding the temples; but after four hours we had to insist to our driver that we wanted to go home.

Our driver had taken us to a ‘good’ restaurant at lunch time, but after looking at the prices and the number of tuktuk drivers (probably all on the take from the restaurant owner) we walked over to a shack with patio furniture outside. The owner was waving at us from across the vast car park, when we waved back she shit herself with excitement, (I assume) her cooking was amazing and the prices were even better! The other extremely annoying think about Angkor Wat is the army of hawkers that surround it; I must have heard ‘ten postcards one Dollar’ a couple of hundred times at least. They stalk you, then chase your tuktuk, if you make the fatal error of saying ‘later’ you will be astonished by that particular hawker’s tracking ability - popping up just when you think you’re safe!

That evening we got carried away on fifty cent beer and headed out with Lauren, Katie, Helen and Tom. Helen and Tom had sat next to me out of necessity but it turned out they both lived and studied in Manchester the same time as me, Helen even lived in   Cavendish Halls the same year I did – alas we were obviously meant to meet in Siem Reap. We ended up in Temple Bar on Pub Street although the music in there was as questionable as the club in Phnom Penh. Note: the fact that a girl has short hair, tattoos all over and moved to Brighton for the night life does not make her a lesbian, it does make for an awkward silence though.

21.08.2012 Speed Bus.

An eight am pick up from our speed bus to Siem Reap meant that we had to get our shit together pronto in the morning. This bus promised to get us from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap in five hours, rather than the usual nine; the down side was that it was minibus; minibuses are notoriously cramped and uncomfortable in Asia. Upon sitting down I discovered that my legs could not actually fit in the space provided – and that was before twelve people’s luggage was loaded in, but for five hours it would be fine. I will take this opportunity to describe the state of the Cambodian road network. Whilst doing my border run (26.07.2012) it was clear that the roads needed work, the van was swerving and veering all over the road to avoid potholes and large debris, but the speed bus was in a rush – the driver desperate to meet his five hour quote, he certainly didn’t have time to avoid gargantuan craters in the roads - he barely managed to avoid traffic. I’m genuinely shocked that the axle of minibus didn’t snap because my neck nearly did, several times; every hole we traversed smashed my skull into the roof. The driver’s was getting there in five hours, no matter what.

Our booking at Garden Village had been fucked up (maybe by us) so we couldn’t get the one Dollar open air Khmer style dormitory we were desperate for, but had to settle for a two Dollar private room made of thatch; nice if not a little dark. As we had had an early start we of course required a nap but did make it out of bed in time for tea, opting for the highly advertised roof top sunset bar within Garden Village. I had Beef Loc Lac again (although it wasn’t as good here) and enjoyed some fifty cent beer. Unfortunately the overcast evening meant no sunset for us, but there would be other days I suppose. We explored to Pub Street (no prizes for guessing what was there) and then the night market where we all decided a massage would be better than a final beer. Laying face down on a little bed I waited for my masseuse, she arrived with a grope of my ankle and upper thigh and used her hands (and my appendages) to navigate herself around; after my initial shock I of course realised she was blind, and for three Dollars she did a bloody good job – if not a little buttock centric. 

20.08.2012 Markets and Movies.

Obviously we were far too hung over to do anything before lunch time but eventually headed to Sorya Mall for some grub, again I went local and had noodles of some sort – unusually they gave very small portions which meant I ate again when Lea and I met up with Lucy and Simon who were in a local fast food chain. We visited the highly anticipated Russian Market (Martin had told us it was the best in Phnom Penh) and as with most things that are highly anticipated it disappointed. It was cramped, smelly, hot and the merchandise was the same crap you can buy in markets all over Asia, we whipped round it and then left getting dropped off at the local market down the road from our hostel. This market was as cramped and as smelly and as hot as the Russian market to be fair but we found the illusive Angry Bird pyjamas here which meant that all the market’s misgiving were forgiven; we could now not only speak Khmer but could dress Khmer (ignoring the fact that only Khmer women wear the pyjama sets) – if we weren’t careful people might start thinking we were local!

That evening we went back to Sorya Mall to watch Batman the Dark Knight Rises, which was awesome. My only gripe was the insane air conditioning; being a know it all I had warned Simon and Lea that the cinema would have crazy air con and advised them to bring a jacket or risk freezing their arses off. Of course I then forgot to take a jacket myself and froze my arse off; upon exiting I gladly embraced the muggy air of an Asian evening for the very first time – two minutes later I was restored to the more familiar overheated sweaty mess that I am now accustomed to.

19.08.2012 Even Chocolate Pancakes Don’t Make Genocide O.K.

Even the delicious chocolate pancakes that I had for my breakfast at Encounters couldn’t put a positive spin on today’s activities. We had hired a tuktuk for the day to drive us to The Killing Fields and S21, I think chocolate pancake would have to be bloody out of this world to make genocide O.K. After an hour of partying to Motown 50 in our tuktuk (I had now purchased a speaker and had therefore become a mobile DJ) our driver veered off down a tiny dirt road that Lucy did not recognise from her previous visit to the genocide museum. We pulled up to a compound with a guard dressed in army type fatigues stood outside, the gate slid open and we were instructed to get out the tuktuk. The compound had a couple of near derelict building, a forecourt and a large pond – we were ushered into one of the buildings. In the building was a solitary desk and another two men dressed in combat gear; on the desk was a laminated piece of paper with a variety of weapons pictured on it – accompanied by a price. Our driver had brought us to one of the infamous gun ranges; you could shoot thirty bullets of an AK47 for forty Dollars, throw a grenade for hundred bucks and fire a bazooka for a cool three fifty. No cows in sight though. (The traveling myth is that you can pay to blow us a cow with your choice of weapon, and if you miss you have to take the cow home with you.) We politely declined and left the complex swiftly, wishing that I had the spare wonga to launch a rocket; this wasn’t the last time we politely declined a less than legal shooting range, every tuktuk driver in Phnom Penh seemed to want to take us there!

After our brief detour we arrived at Choeung Ek Genocidal Centre, although the subject matter is obviously very sad the audio tour was phenomenal. It covered the killing fields and gave enough background knowledge to put it into context, a personal highlight (as far as you can have a highlight a genocide museum) for me was the ludicrous Khmer Rouge party proverbs:

‘Better to kill an innocent by mistake than spare an enemy by mistake.’

‘To keep you is no benefit; to destroy you is no loss.’

‘He who protests is an enemy; he who opposes is a corpse.’

The personal stories that were included in the audio tour (read by the authors) were almost too much for me and really made the ferocity of Pol Pot’s regime sink in; that and the baby tree. The baby tree is a tree that was used to swing babies against to smash their skulls in, not nice. I personally found it incomprehensible that the million or so people who were murdered here, and on other sites used for the same purpose around Cambodia were all killed using spades, machetes and other agricultural equipment; personally I don’t know if I would have the strength to kill one person with a spade, let alone dozens every night.

After an emotionally draining couple of hours we were then taken to S21, a prison where political prisons were kept before they were sent to the killing fields. Our guide for this told us that over half of her family had been murdered, starved or just disappeared in the three years the Khmer Rouge reigned – and she had personally worked on a collective farm (which was basically slave labour). That was another fact that just seemed unbelievable to me, on 17 April 1975 Pol Pot and his army marched into Phnom Penh to vast celebrations (everybody was pleased that the civil war was over) and then expelled everybody who lived in cities to go to the countryside and work in a rice paddy (agrarian socialism) leaving the cities deserted. Completely empty. As we were leaving S21 we had an opportunity to meet the two remaining survivours (of the original seven), it was surreal, they were jovial, smiley and posing for photos – and touting their autobiographies of course; one was clutching a picture of his wife who had died in that very prison as if it was a selling point to his book. We all passed on the photos and autobiographies and were glad to leaving the most depressing day of our trip so far; although it had certainly been interesting.

As I had had posh chicken nugget and chips for my lunch at Saravans I decided that I ought to have the local Beef Loc Lac for my tea at our new local Jaan, and I was divine. After probably too many happy hour beers we were keen to flex our now almost fluent Khmer, much to the amusement of the waiting staff who endeavoured to teach us more – if that was possible. Having got the taste for beer Simon, Lea and I headed out, Lucy didn’t feel up to it so went back to Encounters. Well if they loved our attempt at Khmer in Jaan they went through the roof for it in the next place, even staying open an extra half an hour especially for us – not that we gave them much choice. The Lounge was the final stop for me and it was not a good one. The music was terrible house and the drinks were expensive, teaching some eager Khmer patrons how to move alleviated the horrendousness briefly but eventually I folded and left Simon and Lea to it, whom both seemed oblivious to the appalling music.