After our Chang Mai trekking experience we headed back to Bangkok before we stated the second part of the tour to Southern Thailand. We had the majority of 2 days free so first off we went for a well deserved massage then a spot of lunch before we said goodbye to Clare and Taryn who were heading down to Phuket for a few days of sun. That evening we met up with the new group and guide who from the start seemed a little incompetent. He started the meeting before everyone was there, he forgot to introduce himself or any of the group to each other or organise a meal which resulted in only a few of us going out for dinner that night.

The following day Pam, myself and the Finish couple Katja and Jukka hired a longtail boat for an hour that took us around the maze of canals around Bangkok where we saw loads of houses up on stilts and kids swimming around in the water which I suspect may be mainly raw sewerage.
On the way back to the hotel we passed a red t-shirted protest (I don’t really remember the names of the groups but I know its yellows Vs reds and the yellows have a penchant for airports). We quickly hurried past them as I’d heard that there’d been a few times grenades had been tossed into the middle of the protests.

That evening we boarded the third overnight train of our tour down to the jungles of Koh Sok National Park which proved to be really good fun.
We spent our first afternoon relaxing down the river on giant inner tubes. The guy who organised it and joined s down the river kept pointing out the various snakes and birds along the river but unfortunately it was too wet to take my camera.

The Bungalows we stayed in where really basic but cool, you don’t get any hot water, but you do get monkeys playing on the roof and porch. I know which I’d rather have (although we did have to keep checking everything for snakes.

We spent the next day hiking around the actual national park although our fitness levels and the humidity proved to be our downfall again and we only really saw the most accessible parts of the park, only a few monkeys and waterfalls. We spent the afternoon playing in the river and on the rope swing.

The next morning was New Years Eve and we had to get up at 5am to catch the ferry to Koh Samui. It was soon apparent that the big black clouds in the sky were here to stay and the next 5 days we had planned beachy islands might not be as sunny as we’d hoped.

After a somewhat difficult night’s sleep aboard the overnight train to Chang Mai we arrived at the hotel around 7:30am. We had decided to do a Thai cookery class which involved a trip to the local market to buy all the ingredients then to the cookery school and we were shown how to cook phad thai, green curry, tam yum soup and sesame prawn toast. The class was a lot more fun than I was expecting, I might even give a few of the recipies a try when we get back home.
That evening we visited the Chang Mai Night Bizarre which is a 1km square market which sells everything imaginable although it is mostly to tourists, I didn’t see too many local Thai’s around the market stalls. I ended up getting a new pair of sun glasses and a pair of board shorts for a couple of pounds each. Pam has been quite keen on getting a tuk-tuk since she arrived in Thailand but I’d heard the ones in Bangkok where all out to rip you off, but the ones in Chang Mai seems a lot more reasonable so we ended up getting one back to the hotel.
We started our 3 day hill tribe trek early the following morning first off visiting an amazing waterfall then starting the trek properly with a good 45 minutes uphill climb in under the midday sun. It quickly dawned on Pam and me that what the guidebook described as a moderate fitness level that was required may have been a little more strenuous than we were anticipating. It took about 5 hours to get to the village we were staying the first night in, but it was well worth the effort, we had a quick tour round the village and shown a few local trades and customs. The village was a lot bigger than I was expecting and our guide Pun-Pun explained how all economy works with all the villagers sharing any money that is made like a big happy socalist family. We spent most of the evening sitting around a campfire singing Christmas songs to a very out of tune guitar (with thanks to music maestro Taryn). We stayed in little Bamboo huts that where up on stilts and were a lot more comfortable that they looked, that is until about 4am when all the animals ain the village decided to sing us a song lead by the cockerels.
Our second day of the trek involved another 4-5 hour hike through the jungle. The first couple of hours where quite good and mostly flat, it wasn’t until about 3 hours in that we were faced with another massive uphill climb and then an equally difficult decent. The last hour of our trek was made a lot easier by the cunning use of elephants. We had a lunch of 2 minute noodles and got strapped into the seats on top of the elephants. I say strapped, what I mean is a very thin piece of string. The guy sitting on top of the elephants head didn’t seem to have much control over it as our he just seemed to do whatever he wanted including getting incredibly close to the edge of a cliff just to get at some bamboo.
Our elephants dropped us off 10 minutes outside the village we were staying in that night, this one a much bigger community although by the time we got to our shared hut some of us were a too exhausted to go for another tour of the village and instead opted for a swim in the nearby river followed by a few games of cards. We spent our Christmas Eve very similarly to the previous evening with another bout of campfire karaoke this one helped along by a bottle of local Thai rum which we’ve both got a bit of a taste for.
We were given an option for the last day’s trek (Christmas Day): we could either do another 6 hour trek or pay 300 baht and take a bamboo raft the 40km downstream. All but one of us opted for the rafting which may have taken the villagers a little by surprise because they had to add 4 or 5 more bamboo poles to strengthen the raft. Even with the strengthening the raft sat about 3 inches below water level and once we got in the ‘rapids’ it could go down to about knee depth. Aside from the rapids the river ride was quite relaxing and we saw a number of animals including water buffalo, elephants and somewhat surprisingly a king cobra.
The ride back to Chang Mai in the back of a pickup truck was quite difficult with about an hour of bumping around on dirt tracks then another couple of hours on the road back to the hotel for a well earned shower and couple of hour’s kip.
That evening was the last real night we had together with that group so we headed into Chang Mai for Pizzas and maybe a few buckets, we found a restaurant and bar up on the roof that helped with all our needs and ended up in a tuk-tuk with flashing lights and happy hardcore blasting out speakers.
We had most of boxing day free before our overnight train back to Bangkok so a few of us headed over to nearby Tigerworld, which basically has a number of tiger of varying ages and for 300 baht (£6) you can go in and play with them for 15 minutes. We opted for the 7-9 month old cubs, it’s something Pam’s always wanted to do and despite one of them nearly taking my arm off, it was a pretty good experience.

Like I said in my last post, I had a week to fill before my next tour started so I headed down to Ko Phanganfor a little bit time on the beach. Ko Phangan is an amazing almost Paradise like island that is host to the infamous full moon party, because of this 5 days either side of the party all the prices double of everything. It’s understandable up to a point as I was there on the 5th day after full moon and was the only person in the entire hotel. I just felt I was being ripped off a lot, especially during the times I was by myself and had to pay £20 for 8 seater taxi to take me 20 mins across the island when in other parts of Thailand the same ride would cost around 80p. Inventive local pricing aside, I did have a good time on Ko Phangan.

Eating out in Ko Phangan is a little strange; all the restaurants show the Simpsons, Friends or Family Guy all day, then movies at night. It makes for the most antisocial restaurant experience but I guess it’s more for kids resting there hangovers. We also went down to the beach where the full moon party is held and I tried my first bucket which consists of a bottle of Rum (that they call whiskey), a really thick red bull syrup and a can of coke all mixed into a little plastic sand castle type bucket which you drink through a straw. I left the group after 1 of these, but somehow ended up in a bar singing along to Oasis songs with a totally random bunch of people. Then got incredibly lost trying to find my way back to the hotel and found myself in a police station trying to get directions. It was really hard saying goodbye to the Matt, Sarah, Casey and Maddy. We’d spent the past 3 weeks together and I think you sort of get used to travelling with people, especially with guys as great and friendly as they were.
I ordered a ride back to Bangkok through one of the hundreds of travel agents on the island which sounded like a bargain. For £17 a taxi picks you up from the hotel and takes you to the ferry landing, from there it’s 4 hours to the mainland then a coach takes you overnight back to Bangkok. You have to wait at a mosquito ridden bus terminal for 6 hours and the overbooked bus to Bangkok smells worse than a sewerage farm. I also got my phone pick pocketed which didn’t help matters.
I arrived back into Bangkok at 6am and checked into the hotel, luckily they had a room available so I crawled into bed and didn’t really leave it for the rest of the day.

I went to meet Pam at the airport the next morning, I was a little worried because her flight time had changed and I wouldn’t get to the airport until after she had landed but we seemed to find each other without too much hassle. We spent the rest of the day wondering around the Ko San road, having massages and getting a little drunk on cocktails.
The following day we had to meet up with the tour group in the evening, but had the day to ourselves so I showed Pam the water taxi, sky train and park that I’d been to previously then went to meet the group.  Everyone in this group was under 35 and there was a good mix of couples and singles, we ended up on the Ko San road again for dinner and a few drinks in a bar just outside the hotel.
We where catching the train at 6pm that evening so we had the day to fill. Our guide Pun-Pun (pronounced Pan-Pan) took us for a little walking tour of the city, which was mostly through markets and a little dull but we did go to Wat Po, which is home to the famous golden Reclining Buddah. We were going to try and see the Grand palace as well but we didn’t really have much time.
The overnight train wasn’t nearly as bad as I had envisioned, each carriage has about 3 seats that convert into bunk beds when you ask the porter. They are fairly comfortable but could do with a little more legroom, but I guess they were designed for the slightly smaller Thai people. There was even a party car that was full of westerners.

It took most of the day to get from Battambang to Bangkok via a fairly painless border crossing , I’d heard it could take a couple of hours go get across, but we seemed to get through in around half an hour.
We dumped our bags in the hotel and headed down to the infamous Ko San road for our last night together as a group. The Ko San road is exactly what I expected it to be, hawkers selling everything from Suits to fake ID’s along with food stalls with slightly questionable hygiene standards. There was also a guy selling deep fried insects, I thought it was mostly a tourist thing now and was quite surprised to see a few Thai people buying bags of silk worms. I bought a bag and a cricket for everyone for a little under ฃ1 and most people managed to eat them. The good thing about the Ko San road is that it’s quite easy to buy cheap drinks (50p for a can of chang beer) from the 7-11 and walk around with them, you only have to pay for the more expensive drinks f you want to sit down somewhere.
The following day we all went our separate ways I found a cheap room not too far from the Ko san road for about ฃ8 a night, there was a room for ฃ5 that had no windows, hot water or AC, but I thought I’d spoil myself. The room was above 2 bars both or which had a band playing until 2am, so it’s lucky I was so tired.
The problem I’ve got with Bangkok is that it’s really hard to trust anyone. It constantly feels like everyone is just out to rip you off. My friend Keith took a Taxi from the Grand Palace to the Hotel which is about a 20 minute walk and the taxi driver refused to turn the meter on and then tried to charge him 4000 baht (ฃ80) he managed to escape the taxi (whilst it was moving) but not before paying 160 baht which is twice what it should have cost him.
I decided to spend a day using public transport. I took a water taxi all the way down the river for 25p than the skytrain up to the MBK shopping mall for 50p then down to the Lumpini Park. I spent most of the afternoon in the park watching locals exercising and wondering around all the lakes. At one point I was sitting on a bench on the edge of the lake when I heard a splash next to me, I got the shock of my life when I looked over and saw what I thought was the back end of a crocodile slipping into the lake about 10 foot from where I was sitting. I jumped up and followed what turned out to be a 4 foot long monitor lizard. Once I seen that one I started noticing them everywhere, they just roam around the park like squirrels chasing after the birds.
I’ve since flown down to Ko Phangan to meet up with some of the guys from the tour.

After talking to a few people I was a little worried about Battambang, one guy called it the whore house of Cambodia and judging by the initial drive through the city and the hotel we stayed in it looked like they might have been right.

Turns out they were wrong, we had another moped tour organised similar to the one we had done in Hue. The tour visited small out of town family run operations that make rice paper, grind rice, catch and cook water snake (we all tried a bit, tastes like fishy chicken) and a fish market. It was a really nice getting out of the city and seeing some real Cambodian life and I loved all the kids who jumped up and down waving and shouting “hello”.

Finally we visited a temple that was used by the Khmer Rouge as a torture and detention centre, the gardens where also used as mass graves similar to S21 and the killing fields in Phnom Penh. There’s now a monument filled with the skulls and bones of those that were found in the graves. My moped driver told me how he was recruited to the Khmer rouge when he was 9 years old, but fled to Thailand (which took 3 weeks of walking) soon after and joined the army. He told me that he had lost half his family to Pol Pot’s regime.

We only had one night in Battambang and we were up bright and early the following day for an 8 hour drive to Bangkok. I’ve got a week here before Pam arrives and don’t really want to stay in the city so I’ve booked a flight down to Ko Sumui to meet up with some of the guys I met on the tour, should be a laugh.

Not long after arriving in Siem Reap we were loaded on the bust and taken to our first temple to watch the sunset. After a 20 minute walk to the top of a hill it became apparent that sunsets are a popular pastime in Siem Reap. There was easily 1000 people standing on anything they could to get a better view of what admittedly was an amazing sunset.

I wish I could say the same about the sunrise over the main Angkor Wat temple which we had to be up at 4am to watch along with a hell of a lot more tourists. The whole temple complex (of which there are over 100) feels a little like a theme park although I guess if you go to some of the smaller less popular temples you’d have a lot more of a personal experience. Most of us went on a balloon ride that looked a lot cooler from the temples than it actually was. You stand inside a large circular cage attached to a helium balloon and then a winch lets you up to about 200 meters high and then straight back down again. It cost $15(US) each, but only lasted about 10 minutes. We spent the rest of the day touring round more temple ruins which were all very interesting, but after 5 or 6 hours I have to admit that I got a little boarded.

We did stop off at a museum setup by a former Khmer Rouge child Soldier who defected to the Vietnamese army and now spends all his time detecting and disarming landmines, something he does for free as opposed to the UN that charges $5,000 per mine.
That night we headed to Bar Street (guess why it’s called that) and found a Mexican restaurant that sold cocktails for $2. Three tequila sunrises, three margaritas and an argument about the US/UK/Australian healthcare systems later we called it a night and took a tuck-tuck back to the hotel.

There were a few sore heads the next morning as we headed out to our last temple, Ta Prohm – the one used in the movie Tomb Raider. It’s really overgrown and atmospheric, but unfortunately overrun by Japanese and Korean tourists, all more interested in Angelina Jolie than the temple. Looking back, I was really grumpy that morning, maybe I had more of a hangover than I thought.
We also went for a little boat trip on the Tonle Sap Lake the biggest lake in Asia. There are an entire floating village of Vietnamese people. When I say floating village I mean that everything is on the water, there’s a floating hospital, church, shops and cafes. I made friends with a little kid who took great delight in scaring Frank, the German guy on the tour with a crayfish he had picked up. On the way back we saw freshly skinned rainbow snakes hanging in the sun to dry, tasty.

On our last evening we went for dinner with a family who where friends of our guide. We were collected by a pickup truck with seats along the back and taken to a tiny little suburb of Siem Reap where we were treated to a banquet followed by games and dancing with all the kids in the village.

Next stop Battambang

To be honest, my first impressions of Cambodia weren’t that great. We caught a public bus from Saigon n to Phnom Penh , during which the driver made friends with a six year old Dutch kid and thought he’d like to play with the PA system. One hour of Dutch nursery rhymes later I was ready to wrap the chord round his neck. We stepped off the bus into a throng of tuck-tuck drivers each trying to carry your bags and get you into their tuck-tuck. There was even a guy with a bamboo stick to try and control them.
Cambodia is a lot poorer that Vietnam and it’s really apparent buy the amount of rubbish on the streets. Because of the genocide that took place during the Pol Pot regime in the late 70’s (more on that in a bit) about half the population is under 18 and the majority of the population is illiterate. Also crossing the road is a little more difficult because the moped riders don’t seem to have the same instinctive way of dealing with pedestrian. Whilst in Vietnam I didn’t see a single crash and on the fist afternoon in Phnom Penh I saw two.
We got up early the next morning to visit S21 and the Killing fields. S21 was the converted school that was used by the Pol Pot regime to interrogate and torture anyone they felt may pose a threat to them along with all their families. It was really quite heartbreaking to walk around, the worst I found was all the rooms in building A that each contained a bed, a set of leg irons, maybe a ammunition box that was used as a toilet and a photograph on the wall taken by the Vietnamese army of the victim in each room when they captured the place. You could sometimes see stains on the floor under the bed. About 17,000 people passed through this place before being taken to the killing fields for execution, no one was ever released. It’s hard to believe that most of this happened just 30 years ago and is still happening now in countries like Darfur. Next we went to the killing fields which if you didn’t know any better is a series of small ditches and a large monument containing thousands of sculls. Each one of the ditches is what remains of a mass grave containing between 50 to 200 bodies that had been beaten with sticks and buried alive, there was also a tree that was used to batter babies against before tossing them in a grave.
To lift our spirits a bit that evening we visited a restaurant that is run by and in aid of a local orphanage. The food was great and the kids even do a couple of dances for you.
Up bright and early again we took a 6 hour bus ride to Siam Reap which is home to the famous Ankor Watt temple complex and I’ve got to be up at 4am tomorrow so that I can go and watch the sunrise.

We took a quick one hour flight down from Hoi An to Ho Chi Minh City. As I stepped of the plane it felt like opening the oven door. The heat and humidity here are unbelievable. It soon dawned on me that I need to get used to it because in the next two months it’s only going to get hotter.

I had heard the there was quite a difference between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam’s largest city) but I didn’t expect it to be so apparent. HCMC has a lot more of western feel to it, our guide Bien explained that the people in the north prefer to save money whilst in the more affluent south they have a more “live for the moment” philosophy and prefer to spend more. There are department stores and neon signs all over the place.

In the afternoon of our first day we had a cyclo (3 wheeled bikes with a seat in the front) tour of the city including the War Remnants Museum (interesting, but incredibly bias against the Americans), the cathedral (based on Notre Dame) and the Reunification Palace. I felt very awkward being on a cyclo, it sort of feels like I’m being put on display.
The following day we headed for a boat trip along the Mekong Delta, stopping off at a workshop that makes coconut candy and a bee farm where we had lunch. We also had a little ride down one of the canals in a little rowing boat and the boat trip back to the bus turned into a bit of a Karaoke session, Good times.

Since that was the end of the first part of the tour and we would be losing a couple of people as well as changing guides, we all went out for a big meal (I had a pizza which is the first time I’d had western food since leaving the USA). The night ended up quite messy once we’d found a bar selling cheap gin & tonics and cocktails. People seem to find it hilarious when they see me drinking from a cocktail glass.

Unsurprisingly the next day started with a few bad heads. After we had said goodbye to Bien we headed out to have a bit more of an authentic Vietnamese day. We had lunch in a real Vietnamese cafe, which had only one thing on the menu, pork noodle soup. I found the pork and the noodles, but I’ve got no idea and nor do I ever want to know what the other pieces of meat in the soup where. I slightly underestimated the strength of the chilli sauce which whilst turning my mouth into the surface of the sun, it did the trick curing my hangover. We also had a last Vietnamese coffee in the local cafe down the street. It took a few goes at ordering but was well worth the hassle. You are given a glass half full of condensed milk with what looks like a metal teacup on top, this parts the filter. It takes about 5 minutes to come through and once you mix it in wit milk it becomes really thick. I’ve bought a couple of filters to bring home with me.

I’ve now left Vietnam for Phnom Phen, Cambodia. Our new guide Dave told me that the rest of the tour form here to Bangkok is pretty much Temples, Torture and Genocide, so lots to look forward to.

I don’t really have a lot to say about Hoi An, it’s basically about six or seven streets of tailors, souvenir shops, bars and cafes. The Tailors are really cheap and I think everyone in the group had at least one thing made, some of the girls had about £500 worth of clothes and shoes made up. I only got a couple of pairs of lightweight trousers with legs that zip off.

Since I wasn’t running around trying to get to multiple fittings I used the time to take a rest from sightseeing (I’m not complaining by any means, but sometimes it feels like a job). I spent a good part of the day reading, sleeping and playing on the internet.

A few of us in the group had a bit of a messy night, after drinking all the alcohol we could find in the hotel we decided to find a bar. This involved snaking past the security guard who was sleeping in reception and then jumping the gate. Somehow we managed it (despite breaking the gate) but once out on the street it quickly dawned on us that there was a distinct lack of bars (or anything) open. We wondered the streets for a short while passing only the occasional rat, before coming across two street vendors alone on the pavement. This made for some good haggling as we got them fighting each other on price for cheap beer. We ended up breaking back into the hotel and sitting by the pool until the wee hours drinking our well earned beer.

I liked Hoi An, once you get used to the calls of “you by something form me” or “you look in my shop” and lean to block them out it’s got a really nice chilled out feel to the place.

Next stop Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)