Change of plans, we're off to JAPAN

Hi there boys and girls,

Just the other day we decided to change it up a little, opted to leave the remaining beaches of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia for later and thought to do Japan now... so tonight we leave Bangkok and tomorrow hello Tokyo.. Just like that, no hesitation... crazy! Japan already is breaking the budget just slightly (err majorly!). Oh well!

Over the last few days though we had been chilling on the island of Ko Chang. It poured with rain the day we arrived and it poured with rain the day we left. It is low/rainy season at the moment so we didn't really enjoy our time here as the weather was patchy. It is a shame cause Ko Chang has lots of potential to be a fun place to stay. It really didn't help either that we stayed in a really mediocre bungalow down a muddy side road... our cheapness got to us as we didn't want to pay more than $10 AUS you get what you pay for sometimes.... We should of splurged too as all the resorts were offering superior rooms at half the price of what you would be paying in high season. After Ko Chang we headed back to home base on Bangkok's Khao San Road, where it is cheap cheap cheap. That's what we like...

A few pics of Ko Chang....




and the ever touristy ghetto of Khao San Road in Bangkok...



The pictures of the two guys (above-right) is where we get our breakfast from. Guy on the left serves rice with either pork, chicken or omelet toppings and vegetables for under a $1 AUS and the guy on the right serves chopped fruits for 12cents.. can't go wrong.


until our next blog be safe,
-Uriah and Derek

Loved Looooved Cambodia

We are a few days behind with our entries... we had safely surived Cambodia's crazy bus ride from Siem Reap to Bangkok, Thailand. Cambodia's buses lack aircon and comfortable seats however they did have windows that you could only open an inch cause the roads were super dusty. At one stage I didn't even know whether our bus driver could see ahead. So once again Derek and I were stuck in a sauna bus for 5 hours sweating continuously (followed by a nice 4 hour thai bus ride). I think you know that you stink when you can smell yourself.... I stunk BIG time...



Now that we are back to what seems to be our home base of Bangkok for this 7 month journey of ours, I can honestly say that I loved looooved Cambodia. After Kampot and Sihanoukville we continued our journey further north in Cambodia to a great town called Battambang. People say you can't go to Cambodia without seeing Ankor Wat but for me you can't leave Cambodia without visiting Battambang. Here is where you truly see Cambodians tackling life head on with so much joy and wonderful smiles on there faces even if what you see seems to be sooo little for them it is more than enough. Benny, Kenny or Penny and Jay had given us a great day riding along the country side on their motorbikes. The scenery is a national geographic photographers dream. Riding pass rice paddies, observing little boys herding their cows and buffalos, amazed with six or seven year old girls in their dirty rag school uniforms riding in an adult sized bicycle that has man made wooden handles and seeing monks walking from afar collecting their food for the day from village to village.

Battambang residents are extremely proud of their bamboo train with an old track that was abandoned by the French over 80 years ago and looks like it shouldn't be traveled on. Since Penny and Jay insisted for us to go for a ride Derek and I turned to each other... hugged and said "oh god" ... ok! Three local boys assembled our train and gave us the first class cabin with a straw mat to sit on and off we went. As soon as we got going Jay then decides to mention to keep an eye up a head cause a train may be coming in our direction and therefore we may need to stop and disassemble their train or ours depending on which carriage is the heaviest. Great!

A few days spent in Battambang was fantastic and sadly our Cambodia journey was coming close to an end as we headed off to Siem Reap, our last destination. Obviously, known for their well preserved range of ruins dating back from the 8th to 11th century. Ankor Wat, which they are trying to desiginate as one of the world's 8 wonders if not already.... Ankor is a fairly large archeological park and was certainly surrounded with amazing wats and ruins. Its hard to believe that some of the wats are 1000 years old. The wats were scattered all over Ankor so people usually purchase a 3 day pass of sight seeing which can leave you overwhelmed by Ankors majestic feel. Derek and I did a two day trip of 10 hours per day of sightseeing with our tuk tuk driver friend Mr. Bean.. After the 3rd day we were Watted out..... Enjoy the pics.

So now back in Thailand we will be spending maybe another week or so then heading off to Hong Kong.. Woo hoo! Or actually that's the plan so far.. Derek is the logistics guy I just tag along!

Cheers,
-Uriah

If its not bumpy, it's not Cambodia

Its been a little while since our last update. Pretty much, from Phnom Penh we went to Kampot, Kep and Sihanoukville in Cambodia's south.

Kampot was a nice little place to visit. Very relaxed and without any real negatives. Not to many tourists at all which turned out to be a bit of a problem on our first day as there weren't enough people around to organise a truck to take us Bokor National park. So, we rented a motorbike and checked out nearby Kep and zipped around town all day. Nothing really special, just some nice countryside. The next day we caught a break and managed to get a truck to take us along with a few other tourists to Bokor National Park.

Bokor's main attraction is really that it's an old abandoned (by the French in the 1920's) hill station that has some old colonial buildings including a big casino. Its got a ghost town vibe and when we were there clouds and fog covered the whole area. Check the pics. The only problem going to Bokor is the ride up the hill. The road has got to be one of the worst in asia. Painfully bumpy and so rough that it takes almost 3 hours to cover 40km.. Clouds and thick fog also covered the whole area the higher we went and visibility was maybe 10-15 metres.





On our way home from Bokor the road humbled our pickup with a flat tire. but, after inspecting the tire that exploded, it's no wonder it died.. Never seen tires so bald and smooth..Looked like an inner tube.It didn't stop there and about ten minutes after putting on the spare, some pieces from the bottom of the truck fell off and from there the truck was done for the day.. We had to walk a few km's in the dark and waited for another truck to pick us up. A long day but a good one.

After Kampot we checked out Sihanoukville which is Cambodia's beach resort area. A couple of the beaches were surprisingly nice and very close to Thai standards... One major problem in Cambodia though is litter. We haven't been able to follow that custom because it just feels so wrong throwing your garbage out of the bus window or throwing plastic bags in the ocean and then going to swim right beside it. Needless to say, littering makes some of the beaches pretty damn nasty. The beach we used catered to foreigners so it was much cleaner than many others.

We also bought a painting from this cool kid. Some of the kids around the beach who try to sell you stuff have a little attitude but this kid was bright so we gave him some business.

We're in Siem Reap now and we''ll get a review on that and Battambang later.

We'll also get some photos up soon.. Cambodian Internet service is kinda shitty so will need to get to a good computer first.

-Derek & Uriah

Our bloody camera is DEAD!

A sad day. Yesterday our camera flatlined.... We placed it in it's underwater dive case and took it in the water with us as we didnt want to leave it on the beach but we soon discovered that the dive case was no longer air tight and allowed water to sneak in. The camera took in too much water and its looking pretty dead now. We're a bit heartbroken as we love our camera having used it everyday for the last 4.5 months.

Have no fear, we tracked down probably the only copy of our camera in all of Cambodia and bought it so we're back in business. I wonder if the shop we bought it from will honour a warranty? Oh wait, it didnt come with a warranty card and they gave us the wrong instruction booklet package... Thats cambodia for you!

We'll try to get our original camera fixed in bangkok at the canon repair centre. We'll also put up a new post soon enough.

- Uriah and Derek

Cambodia

Thats right boys and girls. We are in Cambodia now. From Saigon, Vietnam we took a 2 day trip through the Mekong delta and came up through Cambodia by boat.. We thought it'd be more interesting this way (instead of by bus) and it was. From Chau Doc, Vietnam in the delta region it was a full day's affair with over 6 hours in 2 boats and a couple hours by bus to the capital - Phnom Penh.

Boat trip through the Mekong Delta


Border crossing to Cambodia and a warm welcome by locals


We are down south in Kampot at the moment. Its a quiet little place. We got here yesterday after spending a few days in Phnom penh. PP is an interesting city that still has a long way to go as far as development goes. Not all streets are sealed and we had blackouts everyday. Phnom penh has lots of old French colonial building (like much of the region) as well as some new buildings including a very new 4 level western style shopping mall. A lot of the locals aren't used to this sort of thing yet as markets are still the main depots. Some fully grown adults haven't seen escalators and we watched a lady stand in fear refusing to go up one. Luckily the escalator trainer was there to help. There is a riverfront which has many of the high end restaurants. Not surprisingly, the area attracts the most beggars.

Phnom Penh: Central Market, A Typical Motorbike ride, An Elephant in a French restaurant, Silver Pagoda



We saw all the major sites of Phnom Penh in a day. Cambodia has got some seriously sad history and it doesn't look like its going to be forgotten anytime soon as the s.21 prison and the killing fields are arguably the two biggest tourist attractions in Phnom Penh. They got a shooting range near the killing fields where you can fire a rocket launcher if you want to but I think its somewhat poor taste to have such a place so close to the killing fields mass graves. Not cool. It also turns out to be more expensive as its 2 US dollars per bullet.

Shrine of human skulls at the Killing Fields


We visited the old capital of Udong the following day.. It was there that we really got to see the poverty. Being the only tourists there, we attracted a lot of attention with everybody wanting to sell us something or wave fan's at us to cool us down, hoping we'd flick them a bit of money. The kids were cool but they laid on the guilt trip nice and thick asking for money so they can keep going to English school. You could tell that a lot of the people there would be lucky to even make 1 dollar a day. Life is hard here.

Udong kids.


One of the things thats stunned us is how reliant Cambodia is on U.S dollars.. Almost all prices are quoted in US dollar and you only really need to use the local currency (riel) when you need to buy things that are less than a dollar as you can't use US coins. There are a few ATMs around and they all dispense dollars as well.



-Derek

Only in Vietnam

Derek and I have safely crossed the border to Cambodia via a Mekong Delta 2 days 1 night trip.... more on this on our next blog. This blog is more of my little tribute to Vietnam and my way of saying goodbye. Thanks Vietnam for all the good and for all the freakn' scams we have encountered. I enjoyed visiting you!

- Uriah