Real Cambodia and the touristly sites

Hey...


So after the rain finished... me and a friend ventured back to the beach for a nibble and guess who walked by... DAVE AND JAZZ. It hadn't seen my Canadian friends in 2 weeks and I find them strolling past me on the beach. We had a good visit. As it turns out, the English Aussia guy had already met Jazz and Dave a couple of days before at a cooking course. It is a small world. Anyhow... the swedish girls I met on the bus to Sihanoukville joined us on the beach too and convinced me and the english Aussia guy to go with them to bambo island. It was awesome

I was stuck on a desert island for 2.5 days, no interent no electricity, no cambodia people selling me things, just sand, ocean, 10 bungaloos, one restuarant and a hand full of cool swedish people. I officially have started working on my tan. My butt is like the Canadian flag at the momnet... red and white. :)

The island was taken over by swedish people, sort of... they were seven sweds, me, and israeli chick and a couple other too. We chilled, suntanned, read, played lots of backgammon, lots of cards, some drinking games...I even made the journey to the otherside of the island to see a different beach. It was a long 10min walk through the forest, very difficult.

Ok there was a down side to the island... a couple people got very sick, maybe food poisoning. I didn't but I didn't eat any meat.

I was only planning on saying one day on the island... but when the boat came... i didn't want to leave...

It was hard leaving yesterday.. but I do actually want to see an bit of the real cambodia... so me and Tuva and Lisa (sweds girls) headed to Kampot... its a little cambodia town on a little river with little for tourist but it does have shops, and cute buildings and very few tourist. It is a change... I am not sure if it is a good or bad one yet.

Tomorrow I am thinking i am going to stick with the swedish girls and go to Phnom Penn. They are going to meet one of their sis, a swed and some local ppls. Plus there is a cool water park and the very sad killing fields.

After that.... I am going to Vietnam.

I know there is a lot of cambodia I didn't see but there just isn't enough time for everything.

Missing everyone... December starts tomorrow. Christmas is coming and i am going to miss it.

My week has been a crazy one.. I last really wrote an entry while I was in Nakhom Pathon. The last 2 hours before my train were a long 2 hours. I sat at the train station for a bit but there were a couple of homeless guys sleeping on the bench, a group of 6 thai guys and one random guy sweeping... so after about 15mins of sitting there, I was a little scared for the looks I was getting so i walked off to 7-11... I love the place it is always open and they have my new favourite cookies. The city was awake at 2am.. there were women with veggies, ppl cutting meat on table, fisherman with truck fulls of fish... I felt a little safer walking around the market area...until 2 thai guys started following me... it was all good I still have all my money and passport :).
The train ride was a long 8.5 hours then an hour at the border with children begging for money, men with no legs for land mines, and the border officials tryied to tell me that I needed to pay 1000baht = 26USD instead of 20USD which is the posted amount for the visa. He was mad when I refused to pay him anything extra. Next, it look 3.5 hours in taxi to get from the border town to Siem Reap but it is only maybe 150km. The road isn't paved in places... bridges were missing... traffic drives on both sides, and they love their horns. It was a long long day that didn't end when I got to Siem reap because I meet some crzy czech guys on the train and we went drinking. I had lots of yummy angkor beer then stumbled home at 2am... I beleive the others didn't get in until 8am. GUESS WHAt.... I payed 2$ a night and the bed was amazing... the best yet... so compy I slept until 2pm the next day.
Angkor Wat was amazing, I saw one sunset, one sunrise, and too many runes over 2 days so on the 4th day in siem reap i decided to jump on a bus to Sihanoukville ( on the coast of cambodia) which was 12hrs long. It was worth the 12hrs on the little bus (the roads were paved now, but the driving was still random, the bus driver pulled a u-turn because he missed the turn off). I have seen the ocean again. I went skinny dipping in the ocean last night until the cover of darkness.
It rained this afternoon.... i was very sad because I wanted to start to get rid of my farmer tan lines. no such luck.

VERY Very VEEEEEEEEEEEEerrry slow internet

Hey.

I made it too Cambodia officially. The internet here is extremely slow and blogspot is the only web page that will open.

The journey here was so random and full of every type of trainsportation. I left Nakhom Pathom at 3:15am by train and finally arrived at 4:30pm in Siem Reap by shared taxi.

I am here

VERY Very VEEEEEEEEEEEEerrry slow internet

Hey.

I made it too Cambodia officially. The internet here is extremely slow and blogspot is the only web page that will open.

The journey here was so random and full of every type of trainsportation. I left Nakhom Pathom at 3:15am by train and finally arrived at 4:30pm in Siem Reap by shared taxi.

I am here

An update

A photo from Ayutthaya. I was there the day before I saw monkeys

I added some pics to previous posts... so have a look. Question, what ype of pics do you guys want to see, pics of the site, of me, the ppl I am with?

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Nakhon Pathom waiting for a 3am train to take me to bangkok... then I will take a train at 6am all the way east to Arayan station. Hopefully I will cross the border to Cambodia and by this time tomorrow I will be in Siem Reap.

It has been a few days... Jazz and Dave left for Pattaya and Ko Samet, while I retreated to Kanchanaburi to learn somethings about WWII and see more waterfalls.

I arrived to the city via minibus (I went to the wrong train station so no train) with 3 french chics and went to a guesthouse recommended to be by numerous traveller. They were right about Apple Guesthouse... it was beautiful, relaxed atmosphere wth a restuarant that served excellent food. I meet an american women without the typically american attitude and I dined in excellent company that night. It was peaceful here even with the horrible past. The evening was spent shopping, eating chocolate cake and pineapple with a short trip to a little bar (no drinking thou)
One of my favourite spots. I was hiding under the waterfall too, but I could take the pic and be in too. Look at the color of the water. PRETTY.
I almost decided to take the package tour because it would have been easier... but what is the fun in that. Instead, I did it local style. I ran into the french chics and 2 spanishs guys, we were all doing it via local bus. It was an awesome day, very chilled. I meet some local thai guys, and lots of travellers too. It wasn't the thai southern beaches but it was a beautiful area with perfect swimming holes.


The cementries for the men killed during WWII was beautifully cared for.
Today... I meet a german man at breakfast and together we visited with war museum and the cementaries. The man had previously worked with a railway company and he had great stories that added to the history. Prisioners of War, Japanese and local Asians worked 12-16 hours a day with minimal food to constructed a railway from thailand to Burma. Thousand and thousand died during the 2 years of its construction. I took a bus to see a portion of the railway where the men carved out over 4meters of rock for the tracks with nothing but hand tools and dynamite. The photo to the left shows the path for the tracks through the rock. Look closely at the chic in the pic and compare her size to the size of the man made valley. It was truely amazing and sad at the same time.

One good thing was that I met 3 aussies from Melbourne. I have people to show me the town when I get there.

I am off to Cambodia now.
nd

Blaaaa

YES I do have a stick in my hand to "try" to keep the monkeys from attacking me, they just think it is a game to run after the stick.. its a little scary

I went to the city of monkeys......

And when I say city of monkeys, I mean a modern city that haves cages on the balconeys and window to keep out the hundreds of wild monkeys that roam the streets of Lopburi. It was scary and exciting all at the same time.

When we (a french chic, an american women, and a another older french women) paided to get into the runes with monkeys, I was expected a few animals, not a couple hundred. Plus the gate ppl gave us sticks t beat the monkeys off with. A little boy, the son of the women working the gate showed us his monkey bits and showed us around the area. This country gives a new meaning to bring your kids to work.

Like I have said before... I am not very good about staying by myself. I meet people where ever I go and today was go exception. I was up early to catch the 9:30 train to Loburi, but it was an expensive train over 300baht, so i waited an extra 1.5 hours to catch the 13baht train instead. In that time I meet a french chic on holidays for 3 weeks, then an american women. It was a good day filled with musuems, monkeys, runes and good company too.

I will post pics as soon as I fix my camera...sorry

Guess where I am....

A Beautiful lake in the middle of the Sukhothai runes.

Check out http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Thailand/Mae-Hong-Son/blog-102046.html this is Dave's blog entry from their little trip to Mae Hong son (I am glad I missed out on their adventure)

I make it to Ayutthaya all by myself. Dave and Jazz leave really early this morning and I was planning on going with them, but I stayed out too late bar hopping with 2 Germans, 1 Dutch, 1 Australia, and 1 French, and jazz and Dave too.

For those who worry, don't. I ran into Jazz and Dave within 30mins of being in Ayutthaya which isn't bad considering its a city of over 80 thousand people.

Janice... We will habit share stories when I get home. I did sleep in a Karen Village 50km from Pai in a stilt house, 11 of us plus guides shared a large room, sleeping on a bamboo flooring 2.5 meters in the air with 2 waterbuffalo, lots of chickens, and pigs too.

I guess I should actually start from where I left off.

The trek was well worth the money was spent. Jazz, Dave and me joined up with 5 French ppl, one Swedish guy, one English women, Israeli women and we all squished in to a pickup truck. I have decided that I hate pickup trucks here, because I get car sick from sitting sideways. Normally I can read on the windy roads of the northern Thailand in buses, tuk-tuks, etc, but just sitting in sideways in a truck... Not good. Lucky the truck ride was only 1.5hrs to the beginning point of the trek (50km from Pai.) Sorry mom, I can't tell u exactly where I was.

The trek was an easy trek in terms of distance. We walked up hill for 30 mink - had a 10min break, walked 30-40mins more uphill - 45min lunch that consisted of a little fish, chicken, curry and lots of fried rice. I was one of the adventurous ppl... I tried all the food that the guides were offering us. Next we walked on flat ground for maybe an hour to a small waterfall, where the guides made us bamboo cups and hot tea. It wasnt\t the sunniest day so no swimming for me. The last leg of the journey was another hour of so of a little up, a little down and lots of flat to a small hill tribe (Karen) village. We had lots of time to look around, take pics and buy goods, a little too much time. It was at this village that we stayed in a house on bamboo stilts with animals in the barn below us. There was no electricity in the village so after dinner the children of the village sang us songs then demanded we sing them sounds. None of us could think of any songs so we sang "row row row your boat", "a French song" and "twinkle twinkle little star". It was very very funny.

The village makes local rice whiskey so we had to sample it. We started drinking the whiskey at 4... And by 11 it was all gone. I wouldn't tell u how many bottle got drunk because they just kept showing up. By the time the singing was finished, we were all happy. A couple of us played cards... Memory is a very hard game.

There was a line up for the bathroom at 3am. The rooster had a competition at 3am to see who could be the loudest... So everyone was wake... Me and the Swedish guy had a 3am snacktime too.

Day 2 everyone but 4 of us went rafting. Our day started walking at 10ish - walked until 11:30ish. We had a 1 and a bit lunch break where the guide made bamboo cups, bowls, chopstick etc. Walked a little more iup and down through amazing forests and diverse landscapes. Everything was green, but there was so wildlife to be seen, except for a couple spiders, and one frog. At 3pm we arrived at the first campsite but the water level in the river was too low so we had to hike 30mins more to find a larger creek. I saw sad - to shallow for swimming.

it took the guides about 1h to find, chop and construct a shelter for us and start a fire. I am amazed at the food that can be made over a fire. As soon an darkest fell and the food disappeared the animals started to come out. It was scary....

I had the worst sleep the first night of the trek because of all the animals and the next night I didnt\t sleep much because we were in the jungle under a little bamboo shelter with only one wall. By the time we returned to Pai after the elephant rides, bamboo rafting and caving ... I was sooo over tired. That is how I ended up staying there for an extra 3 days.

Me and John decided to party the night away (after a short nap of course) because we ran in to the other ppl from the first day of the trek. We arrived at a bar called Bebop at 1"30pm and it was DEAD DEAD dead... Then guess who walks in... It was the English ppl I meet 2 week's ago in Vang Vieng while tubing. It is a small world. By 11"30 the bar was full full full. I danced, drank and had fun.

I was home in bed by 2am... Only because the bar closed at 1am

The next day was a joke. Jazz and Dave left. Me and john slept in until 10 - had breakfast - went back to sleep until 1"30 - had lunch - walked around - finally rented a motorbike (he drove, they scare me) - but 4:30 we were heading to a hot spring - we made it to the sign what says hotspring 600m and the bike dies. This army dude shows up, we trade him bikes and ride to the gate to the national park. The guard, the army dude and some other guy spend 30mins trying to fix the bike but can't get it to stay running so we called the rental place and they came to pick us up. We sat at the gate for over and hour doing nothing. No hot springs nothing. Instead we went for dinner and massages. We were going to rent a movie too, but nay... We went back to bed.

the next days much better. - john booked a bus ticket to Lao that left this night - so we both packed up - I changed rooms ( I didn't need 2 large beds for myself) - we had breakfast - bought snacks from 7-11 - took the motorbike *new one) to find a waterfall. We got soo lost, we took 3 wrong roads before we got the right one... We saw a canyon (had a nap at the canyon) ... Went for lunch and watched a movie - we shopped - chilled - and ate again. He left at 10 and I went to bed. I got more sleep and ate more food that I had in the last 3 days.

I was supposed to meet jazz and Dave in Chiang mai, but if u read they blog u will understand why they went straight to sukhothai. I caught bus at 8:30 in Pai was in Chiang mai by 12:30... Went into town and found out that my friends weren't in town, went back to the bus station at boarded a bus for sukhothai at 3pm. It was a long bus ride, about 6 hrs, but I did meet a German chick.. She was cool.. We shared a tuk tuk thing into sukhothai and ended up sharing a bungalow too.

Did dinner at a street place, where we met another German guy ( I didn't eat at a single restaurant that day), with pancakes for dessert, found jazz and Dave then headed for the bar. We only had one beer each, but we were there so long we had to kick us out.

I found jazz and Dave and had a breakfast is the nicest restaurant... Yummy fresh French bread.

The germna chic, Jazz and dave filming in the background. This is the first rune of the day at Sukhothai
Then the German chick joined out and we had a long day biking around the old runes of the city. I will post pics. Next time I see runes... I am going early, mid day is too hot for me.

Jazz\s guesthouse had a pools so after a long hot sweaty day we all broke out the swim wear and lounged at a pool.

It was a good day until dinner. I had never had bad food on this trip until last night. Had noodle with a gravy sauce but there was more sauce then noodles and it had NO favor.... Bad bad food... Street stall food was 10x better.

The night ended with a visit to 2 different little bars, which brings us back to the beginning. I stayed out too late and slept in missing jazz and Dave and the bus to ayutthaya.

I am where I was supposed to be now so it is alll OK

good night... I have to get up early to actually meet up with my friends.

bye bye

I miss everyone and home very much.

Guess what... I am wearing the hat... see Karol

Running off to Sukhothai

The couple of extra days I spent in Pai, while Jazz and Dave travelled on were amazing. I will tell you all about them after I trek Jazz and Dave down in Sukhothai. I am in Chiang Mai... and Now I am off to the bus station again to see about a bus south.

Later

Trekking

I found a shesha (east Indian tobacco) bar in the hippy town of Pai. It was Jazz and Dave's first time.

First day of the trek, drinking tea from a bamboo cup one of the guides made us(check it out). And the water from the tea was boiled in a larger bamboo cup thing.
Sorry... too many pics to organize

Second night, 4 of the originally 11 ppl continued on trekking. We camped out in the jungle under this structure. It wasn't bad, but it was a little scary because all the jungle animals and bugs only started coming out after it was dark (mouse, rat, water buffalo, spiders, lots of ants, a praying mantis) .

The guides made everything from bamboo... bowls, cups, chop sticks, tent from bamboo. It was sweet.

Jazz and Dave on a 4 year old female elephant whos name I forget now. John and me rode on a 3 year old male elephant names Pee yang. On the third day of the trek, we visited a village, rode on elephant, went bamboo rafting, and toured through a cave. What more can u wish to do in a day, really.

Oh ya.. I am going to go for a sauna and a massage in a bit.


I am beginning to think that I ever want to come back to Canada. I can live here for less than 25 dollars a day and do almost anything I want

Its raining its pouring...

and I don't think its going to stop.

A pic from the parade. So many pretty women, and dazzling costumes.

I am not in Pai... Promised more like Pie, then bye. Just so u know. Its a little hippy town, the main income of the town is tourism... So there are a lot of white ppl here, too. I try to do something different, and I end up doing the same things as everyone else. jeeze.

Oh well, Last night I stole myself a seat on the curb and actually watched most of the parade for the Loy Krathong. It was a very religious parade with beautiful dollied up Thai ppl on lit up floats, ppl with lanterns. Very cool. It was a little dangerous watching the parade... Because people all over the city were lighting mini hot airballoons that symbolize bad luck leaving u, and encouraging good luck for the winter season (still 30 degrees here thou). It was dangerous because they are made of paper and occationally the lanterns would catch on fire, or they would break sending flames/fire to land on ppl's heads. I only had ashes land on me. :P
The pic on the right - millions of flower things like these were placed in the city moats and river in memory of loved ones and to bring good luck from the year to come. (I wonder who has the job of cleaning up all the flowers/candles)

Dude... you lets 5 year old children play with firecrackers, and fireworks. There was a continuous supply of firecracker, fireworks and other noise making things going off until the wee hours of the morning. Me and this Thai chick walked into some kind of firework... I lost my hearing for a couple of minutes.

People were everywhere, dancing, singing, etc. It was awesome and I spend the evening with my friend from the previous night. I was surprised to run into Dave and Jazz on a random street while trying to find the river.

Overall an awesome night. This morning was a different story. I slept in because my alarm didn't go off at 6:30... I rushed around packing my shit, and I had little time for breakfast because we thought the bus left at 8 am to get to Pai. It didn't leave until 9... I could have slept an extra hour. The bus we sat on for 4 hours was the smallest tinies bus in the whole station and the road to Pai were very very very windy.

My head still hurts from all the noisy of last night, and I might be a little hungover. I am going to bed early tonight b/c tomorrow is trekking time. I will be off away from the internet for 3 or 4 days.

Later

I edited

After a game of pool, I ended up chillin with A Thai (Kin), and English (Heather), me, an English (?) and a Texas guy (Adam)was a random night of drinking games, pool and live music.

Nov 4 was the official start of the Festival here, there was a parade, lots of fireworks a lot with a beauty contest and hot air balloons.

I completed my first cooking course today. It was awesome, but leave me feeling way too full. When I first arrived, they served us freast bananas, pineapple and papaya, next a trip to the market where I learnt about the spices, chilies, and other ingredients of Thai cooking. But 10 am the cooking began. First I made spring rolls, then green curry, basil chicken ( I choose to not make it very spicy.. Some people put too many in and wow was it funny to watchh them eat it). We had a 30min lunch break. Jazz, Dave and I walked around the neighorhood in hopes to feel less full. After the break, we made papaya salad(In the pic on the right), Pattia ( I can't spell, its a noodle thing), fried banana and we munched on fresh fruit.

OVERALL, I have decided to never eat again. Just kidding, but I am very very full.

A day exploring Chiang Mai

Sorry, I did try to rotate. Me and jazz dressed up

Today was a wonderfully day that started later than most because I was out last night, clubbing for the first time in a really long time. I danced, I drank, I partied.

This morning, we finally decided on a cooking course (we are doing it tomorrow) called the Thai Chocolate school. We aren't making anything with Chocolate thou. damn.

Jazz, Dave and I charted a taxi for the day to take us to a small village, where we dressed up in traditional clothing. It was funny because other ppl in the village took photos with us. I didn't feel completely like a tourist, but a local for a few minutes. I almost bought new clothes at the market, but i remember that I had already owned too many clothes.

Next, the royal familys winter palace (I am posing in front of one of the may flower gardens), too bad it wasn't the season for Roses, the pics would hav been 10 times better. It was still awesome thou.

Last was the most famous Wat (temple) in the area with a look out over Chiang Mai. The gold stumpa was something to see.

Sorry, the computer is too slow, I did add a couple pics to the previous entry.

Love you all
See.. I have been seeing lots of water buffalo... they seem happiest in the mud. I don't get it

Back in Thailand...again

The Photo is me and the French women Gwen, and we are one the little wooden boat that I spend 2 days on traveling done the Mekong river. (it was alittle windy)

Next time I am flying. I have been on a boat for 2 days, with a night in a little village, and now a 6h bus to Chiang Mai. I am looking forward to chillin out there for a couple days.

Moving every morning to tough, and sitting all day makes my ass soar, however I have been catching up on reading. I am reading "A million little pieces" by James Frey. It is an amazing and graphic book. Wow

Meet my first group of Kiwi's and more english on the boat. I swear the english are taking over the world again .

I miss laos already. Only 2 days ago i was jumping off waterfalls and swiming in beauty rivers...

The pic on me jumping off the waterfall didn't work, so u see Marus jumping instead. I was so scared at first, but by the 3rd or 4th time... it was easy as pie.

i am off later