Heading home

The last stage. How can three and a half months have gone so quickly? Well it has and I'm finally on my way home.
So I'm bound for Malaysia, heading for the Perhentian islands. A pair of coral coated islands on the North East side of the Malaysian penninsula in the South China sea. The journey, of course, was not quite as straight forward as it could have been. To reach the Malaysian border from Koh Phangnan took one ferry, one bus, two pick ups, two minibuses and a sturdy pair of flip flops.
Having done a couple of laps of Suratani town and spent, at least, an hour waiting for someone who came over on the same ferry as me, to join us, the journey to the Malaysian border was underway.
This journey comprised of the two minibuses and one of the pick ups, how silly of me to expect direct transport by now. On the way down, we were joking about reaching the border by 6pm, "in case they close Malaysia early". I mean close early, what a joke.
It turns out Malaysia closes at 9pm and we arrived at 8.55pm.....which gave me and my two chums exactly five minutes to sprint half a kilometre through thai customs, over a bridge, through a large gate and into Malaysia..........in flip flops..............with me carrying the heaviest rucksack in the world!!
No problem. One of the lads lost both straps to his rucksack, just to spice up his run, but with seconds to spare we crossed the border and fell into the control office. Judging by the looks on the officers faces, I'm sure they would have waited just to see the three of us collapse in front of them whilst attempting to fill in the necessary documentation and thanking them profusely for keeping their country open for us. Either way, we were in......and just in time to watch England v Trinidad & Tobago!

So after the nights unscheduled border sprint and a glorious England victory, we set out the next morning for Kota Bharu and onto Kuala Besut. We were there by lunchtime and ,before we knew it, soon heading towards Pulau Perhentian Kecil, the smaller of the two islands.
After transferring to a water taxi, their equivalent of the tuk tuk driver, and being held to ransom for an extra couple of bucks, or us and our bags were to make our own way to the shore, we were on dry land. Well dry sand actually. Dry white lovely paradise-esc sand, with a glazing of small pieces of coral.
Minutes later, accommodation secured, swimming shorts donned, it was into the crystal clear water and time to soak up paradise.
The island has two main beaches. Ours, coral beach, and one on the other side, the bigger, more populated long beach. Inbetween these beaches is a small footpath running through jungle, which needs a torch and a lack of fear of all things creepy and crawly, when negotiating at night.
Along with a few guitar strumming locals, the second largest inhabitant of the islands are monitor lizards. The ones we saw were about 3-4 foot long, although there were sightings of larger versions apparently. I'm not entirely sure what would the outcome would be if we happened across one of these creatures and caught it by suprise, but the stories of large spider sightings outweighed any reptile concerns. The Hungarian guy, in the hut next door to mine, was chased out of his bathroom by a very aggressive.....LARGE...... spider!?!
I moved guest houses the very next day. No point taking chances.
So after two days of dinosaur spotting and some of the best snorkelling I've ever done, it was back on the boat and off to Kuala Lumpur.
Sadly, I only had an evening in KL, so didn't get to see the Petronas towers or any of the other incredible buildings that seem to be sprouting up there. Instead I spent it meandering through Chinatown eating drinking and watching the world cup. All this took me to 3am, as I bumped into a couple of swedes who I was travelling through Myanmar with, and was easily persuaded to watch Brazil play in some reggae bar with an indefinite happy hour.

An hour later I was stumbling towards a bus destined for the airport, and ultimately home.

South East Asia was an absolute pleasure and would recommend it to anyone who has even a remote passing interest. Without doubt, I would like to return there, however, the travel bug seems to have settled in quicker than expected and I'm already counting the days until the next trip. Maybe next time, I'll go a little further afield, and maybe next time I'll carry a little less in my rucksack!

Through Bangkok to Koh Phangan

I'm beginning to think that I shall never grow up. Most of you probably already know that I am destined to never grow up, so this news will come as no suprise.
This chapter begins with, what people describe as possibly, the worst road in South East Asia, the road from Siem Reap to the Thai border. This consists of about 4hrs of pothole with elements of dirt and road along the edge. After some comedy transport arrangements, where even I was able to almost lose my cool, we were underway. I should imagine that I am one of the few westerners in history to have managed to sleep on this journey, owing to the 2hrs sleep from the night before, and by sleep I mean drifting in and out of conciousness with my head bouncing between the car roof and the Aussie guy on my left.
On crossing the Thai border I graced the tarmac with a pope style kiss, hopped in a real minibus and fell asleep again.
Reaching Bangkok was like coming home, the familiar but annoying sounds of overplayed Jack Johnson, the hustling tuk tuk drivers trying to sell their 'something' and the awesome street stall food vendors. To add to the excitement, it turns out that it was the 60th anniversary of the Thai kings reign, so the whole country was living it up, especially in Bangkok. To celebrate this event, I, and my new American buddy, headed off to the Patpong district to see the infamous ping pong show. Off course this journey took two attempts as the equally infamous dodgy tuk tuk drivers tried to take us everywhere but Patpong. We eventually saw the show and it was, of course, an extremely funny experience.
So just two nights in Bangkok and then down to Koh Phangnan, home of the full moon 'soiree'.
After a good nights sleep on the floor of the overnight bus, I was dropped off bleary eyed at the ferry terminal at Suratani. Three hours later the island of Koh Phangan was blessed with my camera and I.
Now the next few days are slightly hazy. I found a great little guest house on a beach, called ........The Beach, right next to Nice Guest House. This provided some interesting moments when trying to tell the taxi driver, on the way back from the full moon party, that I was staying at the beach next to the nice guest house!?! It took a while but I got there in the end.

Which brings me onto the full moon party. Once again, the buckets(whiskey, coke and extremely potent red bull) made an appearance. I remember my second bucket at about 1am, and have the mandatory memory loss for the next five hours.
So come 6am I found myself watching the sunrise before heading back to the loudest club on the beach where I proceeded to dance in a frenzy of dayglow paint and breakfast beer until roughly 11ish.
I vaguely remember scaring some people, who had just arrived on the island, in the taxi on the way back and spent the rest of the day tucked up in bed.
The next day, my new friends and I decided that we had such a good time, and we should do it all over again. Will I ever learn? Apparently not. So with 24hrs recovery inbetween we headed back down to Hat Rin, drank more of that alchohol caffeine combo stuff, applied luminescent body paint and danced like crazy people until dawn again!........followed by another day in bed.
Needless to say, the camera did not go to the party with me, however, I did manage to take some photographs during my time there.
Next stop, the Per Hentian islands in Malaysia, then home. The Per Hentians are supposed to have a more paradise like quality than the Thai islands and, judging by the number of Seven Elevens and ATMs in Thailand, that can't be too hard!

Siem Reap

Where do I start? Siem Reap is a great little town. The journey here was painless, or should I say without event at least. Arriving at the bus stop was pretty comical in itself, as before you even get off the bus there is a mass of tuk tuk drivers swarming to grab a big juicy tourist and speed them off to their friends guesthouse. The funny part is that half of them are holding a board with your name on it, as they've all been tipped off by the guest houses in Phnom Penh. I calmy waited for the frenzy to die down and having kept my travelling plans a secret from my previous guest house they was no 'Mr.Mark' board waiting for me. So I picked the least dodgy looking driver that I could find and headed for town.
Cambodia was described to me by a few travellers, who seem to have bad encounters, as Scambodia, and I can understand their reasoning. The town sits on the edge of the Angkor Wat complex and is under constant development to accomodate to hordes of tourists who visit every year. The reason why the name 'Scambodia' seems to have arisen is because the streets of siem Reap are peppered with beggars, but beggars who have become fairly accustomed to the western tourist.
There's a very good reason why there are so many beggars, and a very good reason why resentment seems to have occured. Cambodia is an extremely poor country and outside the tourist areas, namely Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and the beaches in the south, the only economy is agriculture, and it's a fairly weak economy at that. To compound all this, the government is about as corrupt as one could get, so the poor stay poor and the corrupt and rich get richer.....and more corrupt.
With the country only recently coming out of the Pol Pot regime and the grip of the Khymer Rouge,the people there are stil trying to pick up the pieces and make the most of what they have......which isn't much. Pretty much everyone that I spoke to has lost family members to the Khymer Rouge or knows of someone lost, which is no suprise as they murdered 20% of the population. So with the threat of genocide over, the people in the country now have just the landmine situation to deal with. Which brings me onto my original point, the beggars. The town is full of landmine amputees ranging from six year old children to adults. It's hard to cross the street without someone asking for, what would appear to be the standard rate of, one dollar. On the first couple of days, everyone who asked would get some cash, maybe not a full dollar, but something at least. However, and my bank manager will vouch for this, I am not made of money and can't afford to dish out cash to all of them, so I took to buying food. Pat yourself on the back mark, aren't you a kind fellow? Kind but niave it would seem. I but dinner for maybe half a dozen homeless kids and a the word spreads pretty quickly, "the big bald guy's buying dinner, get him". So the trend becomes, eat (at the local food stalls of course), pay and at the same time buy diner for homeless kids then make a dash for the nearest bar. Seems to work OK, and doesn't cost me all my precious dollars.
So apart from feeding a percentage of the local population, and befriending a good dozen adult amputees, who make a great effort to support their families by selling books on improvised wheelchair stands, I set out to explore the temples of Angkor Wat.
If there was ever a time to experience feeling like Indiana Jones, this was it.......apart from the treasure, the beautiful girls, the bad guys, the bull whip, etc, etc......you get the picture.
The temples are simply amazing. Angkor Wat itself is a piece of work, but the entire complex requires more than the three day pass that I opted for. They go on and on......and on!
The best way to see the temples is with a tuk tuk driver, and the Siam Reap form of tuk tuk is a scooter with a makeshift trailer hooked on the back. It goes without saying that the tuk tuk drivers are able to acquire anything, or "something", should one require it. I however just wanted three days of 5am starts to catch sunrise and then play at being Indiana Jones for a few hours. The 5am start came as a bit of a suprise to my driver, however it wasn't too much of a chore for him as everytime I went off to play 'Indy', he'd find a bar with a hammock and catch up on some zzz's. Or so I thought, as come day three he'd decided it was too much and handed me over to one of his fellow tuk tuk bretheren......lightweight!!
So going back to the temples.......incredible. My personnal favourites were Bayon and Ta Prohm. Bayon was a maze of stone faces and the camera couldn't keep up with my enthusiasm at times, and Ta Prohm, "the one where tomb raider was filmed"(and boy do they make you aware of that), is a maze of stone ruins and huge tree roots.......again the camera was struggling........lightweight!!
I was under the illusion that my 5am starts would give me some degree of privacy in the morning........how wrong I was. Bus loads of Japanese and Korean tourists raced to join me watch the sunrise, took almost as many pictures as me..... and then headed back for their buffet breakfasts at their hotels. Me, I grabbed an omlette and a cup of tea(of course) at one of the food stalls dotted all around the complex.
Whilst ambling around one day, I met a monk called Vat, and in time honoured tradition gave the VAT man some money, although this time it wasn't as much as I normally do and it went to a worthy cause......his English lessons.
So this was the pattern for three days and both I and the camera were glad of the lie ins we treated ourselves to the following days.
Aside from the temples, Siem Reap is home to a childrens hospital, whom I shared a couple of pints of my beer diluted blood with, and a landmine museum run by a guy called Aki Ra, formerly a child soldier in the Kyhmer Rouge. The museum, and when I say museum I mean a couple of huts deep in a local village, was free to get into and survives purely on donations.
This guys story is simply amazing and can be read on the link below,

http://www.akiramineaction.com/story.html

Stories like this are commonplace in Cambodia, and especially in the Siam Reap area, with there being so many landmines and unexploded ordnance all around the area still.
So having seen one of the greatest man made religious structures in the world and spent time at the landmine museum and a rehabilitation centre for amputees and given blood at the local childrens hospital..........I proceeded to enjoy the, extremley lengthy, happy hours at the bars on, the very appropriately named, pub street for the following two days. 30p a pint can't be wrong!
Siem Reap was a great place. The incredible Angkor Wat complex, but I think the education I received about the recent Cambodian history was far more rewarding.
For those who are interested, I'd move fast as there is hotel after hotel being thrown up there and what charm is left will soon be extinguished by us, the tourists.

Oh yeah, I saw my second spider of the trip in my room one night.The size of my hand and quicker than a tuk tuk driver. Needless to say, I didn't sleep too well that night.

Next stop, Bangkok and then the islands........no beached whale comments please.

Vang Vieng (for the 2nd time) then into Cambodia

So without any further incidents, I arrived back in Vang Vieng to cover the shots I'd done first time around, however, this time in the hope that there may be some daylight to work with. I was lucky, we had one day, so grabbed a tube and hopped in. Needless to say, it was a complete torment, having to go through the process of floating down the river, randomly drinking cold beers and jumping into the water every now and again. I know, I know, you're thinking to yourself, "when does Mark ever stop working and just find the time to relax". To be quite honest with you, I don't know either!
So it was back on the bus, and this time it had a glowing green underbelly and flashing lights at the back. Not quite sure about the purpose of this, maybe it's to keep the drivers awake , when driving in a convoy at night? Maybe it's because the owner of the bus company has got a brother who works at Halfords, who knows? But back on the bus it was, and this time my travelling companion was a Cambodian man called Bro. At least I thought he said Bro, so Bro it was. I just liked the sound of it, eh Bro?
I was hoping that travelling with a local would benefit me when it came to border crossings, communication and not getting taken to the cleaners by every dodgy taxi and tuk tuk driver in our path. Not quite, but it did make life a bit easier, and I was glad to see that even he paid the extra two dollars that I had to on transport to Phnom Penh. The highlight of the journey was encountering the legendary Cambodian roads, or should I say 'lack of'. Almost immediatly before we crossed from Laos into Cambodia, the road just ran out. Not a jot of tarmac, just miles and miles of red dirt track, with really big potholes in it.......and water in them. Which didn't suit our Toyota blah blah, or whatever it was. Despite all this, the local drivers came through trumps again and before we knew it, we were in Cambodia.
We went through a middle of nowhere town called Stung Treng, where a pharmacist that I was trying to buy antiseptic (for the stuntmans foot) insisted on dressing my wound with an unecessary amount of bandage. So at least I looked the part. On squeezed the flip flops, my 4th pair I hasten to add, and we were on our way to Phnom Penh.
We reached Phnom Penh at some time in the early hours, to be greeted by the all too familiar tuk tuk driver welcome, "hello friend, want something?"

Now "something"can be anything right? Which is pretty much what they are trying to sell, anything. Anything that'll make them a quick buck and they're off before you can say, "no thanks I'm British". This applies to tuk tuk drivers all over South East Asia, and they are more than happy to oblige, although most of the time they're just trying to sell drugs, girls and occassionally a ride on their tuk tuk.

So I found a guest house on the lakeside, walking through a sea of "want somethings?" No.9 for those who've stayed there.

I'm not going to explain, for those who don't already know, about how and why the genocide happened in Cambodia, but two of the main tourist attractions in Phnom Penh are the S21 museum and the Killing fields. The S21 museum is an old secondary school that was used during the reign of the Khymer rouge the imprison people and torture them and the Killing Fields is an area just outside the city, where they were all murdered and buried. The impact of seeing these is quite overwhelming, as they have been left in the same state that they were left in the day the Khymer rouge fled when the Vietnamese came over and put a stop to it. The stories are quite horrific, and not what I would like to repeat on this blog.

Having seen all this and realising that most of the people guilty of those crimes have not been brought to justice and the people of Cambodia have just tried to pick up the pieces and get on with their lives.

Aside from the tragedy and the ongoing suffering that many people still lead with Cambodia still being the most landmined country in the world, Phnom Penh is a great city that still suffers from abject poverty, yet they seem as able to pull out a smile as quickly as anyone I've met.

With the monsoon season already showing its teeth, my days were fairly limited to seeing much else, but there are clear signs that the gun violence is on the decline and tourism is on the up.

I was the treated to a quick flight and four days in Phuket with some old school friends, who made me drink my own body weight in Long Island iced teas (Seb and Gareth, thanks for the stagless stag weekend).

I returned to Cambodia a much poorer and broken man, and this is where I now find myself, although I have managed to muster up the energy to get to Siem Reap, home of the mighty Angkor Wat. I start the first photographic foray in the morning at 5am, so must bid you all (or should I both?), goodnight.

Don Det and back

Still in our little group, from the slow boat to Luang Prabang, we headed south through the capital Vientienne. I was there for just a day, before deciding to brake away, in a splinter group, and head all the way south, to Don Det(one of the 4,000 islands on the Mekong river). The journey was broken up with a small two day trip to Champasak, just north of Don Det.
Champasak was described as "a sleepy one road town on the banks of the Mekong", which wasn't too far from the truth as we had to wake it up to get in there. No sooner had we woken up the ferry driver and crossed the river, than we managed to attract the local lunatic, who was more than happy to offer us his take on accomodation advice. So, without a second thought, we flagged down the first tuk tuk and decided to follow our noses. We forgot, "sleepy one road town", so had to endure the madman until a tuk tuk had awoken and found us.
After, seemingly, waking the rest of the town to find a guest house and some food and the big old Wat Phu(temple) there, we were back across the river and on our way to the 4,000 islands.
So onto another 'sawngthae'(pick up taxi) it was and down route 13 for another hour before being dropped off at a hut on the side of the road, where a couple of old guys on scooters promptly hopped up and speed us on our way to another river boat.
At last we reached Don Det, a little island set ion the widest part of the Mekong river, surrounded by lots of other islands(hence the 4,000 islands bit). What were once small fishing communities, have now quickly cottoned onto the fact that lazy westerners really like lying around in hammocks and doing a number of easy going river based activities here. So the following six days were a blend of walking, cycling, swimming, a couple of very poor attempts at fishing and ensuring the stability of our riverside hut hammocks. My hammock wasn't as stable as the others, which I put down to poor hammock maintenance. Problem soon righted I was back in action, so to speak.
There were a selection of snakes and scorpions to keep us entertained by day, but by night the show got much better. With a full moon and clear skies overhead, we were circled by storms all around us and had small flashing fire flies darting around the island, just to compliment the lighting show put on for us above.
My chess skills were refined even more and I was in complete slow motion by the time we had to leave. At this stage, the whole pace changes anmd I found myself heading back up to Vang Vieng to get the photos that I didn't get first time round.
This process involved a boat, another sawngthae a bus(complete with alnight thai karaoke videos) and another smaller bus. Stage one went without a hitch...that was the boat.
Stage two, however, went with a very large hitch indeed. Watching the sawngthae blokes loading up their truck with rice, live fish in large buckets, crates of poultry and an array of man on roof, pregnant women and a couple of sick little girls on IV drips, we grew slightly concerned about the weight this pick up could carry.
My fears were not without good reason. After giving up my seat inside for a little old lady, I found myself adapting the local method of travel, which requires hanging off the back of the truck standing on the tailgate and holding onto the roof rail. It wasn't so much the precariously placed ducks posteriors facing directly at my face, it was more the way we passed four other, similarly overloaded, trucks all with blown out tyres.
All of a sudden, bang. We lost the left rear and started into a fishtail that seemed to build up momentum as we decelerated. Every swing took us further towards the ditch on the side of the road and, in my instantly formulated opinion, certain doom. This was when I made the concious decision to abandon ship. If it had rolled, I would have been in the safest position on the truck........it didn't, and I wasn't. The result........several unappreciated cuts and scrapes and another pair of flip flops sacrificed.
The truck came to rest across the road and I came to rest about 30 yards behind the truck. To make matter worse, I immediatly started to burn my, now bare, feet on the tarmac that had been baking all morning. So we all pulled myself together, not a misprint this time, as I used the best part of my Canadian friends medi kit to clean, patch and sooth my open wounds.
I still hold fast that I made the correct choice, and the Canadian and Aussie guys I was travelling with were in complete agreement.
So everyone checked, and me now realising why the drivers don't let tourists hang off the back of their trucks, we waited for another one to come and get us. It arrived within an hour or so and we all, except the rice, fish and poultry, sat in complete silence watchiong the road for the duration of the journey.
The following 48hrs was spent travelling back to Vang Vieng.....and wondering whether my childhood dream of becoming a stuntman should have become a reality.
I will update the photos when I find a computer with the necessary capabilities.