Thursday, February 21, 2008

A Short History of Nearly Everything

On account of no one picking up where I left off, I am going to provide a short bullet- pointed summary of our activities in the last month or so.

CAMBODIA
  • arrive in Phnom pehn, find way to local bus to go to Siem Reap, bus is playing what is apparently the most HILarious film quite loudly, followed by a fantatsic karaoke DVD.
  • Notice every tiny village we pass is heavily signposted by one of 3 political parties
  • Arrive Siem Reap, only whities on bus. We cruise into the bus station and see about 40 men behind a wire fence. As we arrive the open this fence and we are mauled by the eager tuk tuk drivers.
  • Lots of yelling.
  • get out alive.
  • visit the amazing temples of Angkor wat, Ta prohm and Angkor Tohm (sp.?)
  • temples really beautiful, but are covered in tour groups :(
  • eat some amazing food- lots of fresh herbs
  • experience 4 litre table beer dispenser
  • 2 team members down (may or may not be related to beer dispenser)
  • In general; Cambdia is a really nice country although the people seem a little more desperate than those in Thailand. The infrastructure is not the best, the roads are all dirt and potholes. We have since read about what happend with the Khmer Rouge and it all makes a lot more sense.

BANGKOK

  • we head to bangkok on one of the worst buses of the trip- unfortunate for the two members down
  • road is so bad we pop a tyre, which we wait for them to patch
  • one chair is not actually attached to bus so two poor strangers spend the 6 hours clinging to things
  • reach border, strange smell and loads of casinos in 100 m stretch between Cambodia and Thailand.
  • Once on Thai side road is flat, bus is air conditioned, feel like we have arrived HOME

KOH TAO

  • Learn to dive, best thing ever
  • Tess has a mishap with a curb and sprains ankle, still learns to dive, what a soldier
  • meet some great people drink some buckets
  • Mike sees Shark, Clemmie secretly glad she doesn't
  • Are now obsessed with Diving
  • Move to small beach on the SW of Island
  • find even smaller beach, Freedom Beach, paradise.
  • Ultra relaxation

BANGKOK (for the millionth time)

  • no accomodation (at 10pm) apart from those promoting the acceptance of Thai girls and suicidal graffiti on walls (bit to much like The Beach)
  • after 3 hours find a complete rip off, and our buddy Chris yaye!
  • get a few massages
  • 2 x interesting taxi experiences; 1. crazy man (called himself Michael Shumacher) drove us at a top speed to absolutley nowhere, cops flag him down, he carries on, find ourselves in police chase, swerve through red light in front of second police car. He manages to get away. 2. flat tyre on massive motorway in taxi on way to airport, hilarious to traffic.
  • Ans heads to Chennai, bit scary, I belive quite a few hours were spent in her room.
  • after a few delays we all make it to India, YAY

South East Asia complete

Loving; pantalones, pancakes, ginger tea, fizzy drinks, massages, swimming in sea, eggs, eggs, eggs, soup, naps, bum squirters (new found favourite thing), buckets, tubing, Eagle House, Beer Lao, plastic cheese, discussing bodily functions, Jomas bakery

Hating; jandals being stolen MORE than once, bum wees, facial mosquito bites, leonard the lizard, trigger fish, rocky boats, showers over toilets, buckets, Lao Lao, Kip, red dust of Cambodia, being called 'Lady',

right well that took a long time so we will update India soon



For photos of the adventure see http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30549&l=ff423&id=673219807