May 2006

Sunrise at Angkor Wat.

After the islands we travelled back to Bangkok on another wonderful Boat/Bus combo, another 12 hour fun filled trip on public transport only made bearable by our consumption of half a litre on SamSon(very cheap Local Thai whiskey, very very cheap-like 1 quid 50 for a litre)coke and red bull during another marathon journey. We spent a couple of nights on Th Koah Sarn before booking a trip into Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat.

We needed to leave and re-enter Thailand as our visa was just about out. The trip was three days, day one-travel there, day two-see the temples, day three-travel back. Sounded fine no problems (we thought) We started our journey from Bangkok at about 8am on Sunday, got to the border 4 hours later and proceeded through passport control (another 2/3 hours) when we got to the end we were informed by a seriously moody female police officer that our visa was 2 days out of date! we we're sure this was't the case and tried to argue our point, that was untill she pointed at the visa stamp which read expired 28th April! Ooops, so we paid our fines (1000 Bhat) and went through the border to our 4th country of our trip. As we walked through the border we saw 4 or 5 huge very swish looking casinos, apparantly their illeagal in Thailand and the Thai men come across the border to gamble in their spare time. Once we passed those our impressions we're very simular to those when we firt got to India, "SHIT a bombs gone off!" it was very dirty, there were lots of beggars and pretty much pverty was the order of the day. We were then hussled into a very rickity old minibus, which appeared to have gunshot holes in the windscreen, we found that very reassuring. We headed toward Siem Reap (the town where Angkor Wat is found) the road there can only be described as the worst fooking road in the world, potholes the size of small children dusty as hell with gravel and chippings everywhere. The suspension on the bus didnt really help either it was awfull, to put it in perspective the driver (drive I think his name was) was ragging the bus for all it was worth the whole way and we took 6 hours to get 150kms! we did have a few stops on the way and met some really great people, it still amazes us that the happiest people we seem to meet are the ones with nothing!

Another impressive temple.

We arrived battered and bruised at the hotel around 9pm and arranged to visit Angkor Wat the following day at sunrise, we thought that we may had well do it properly! Angkor Wat and the other 5/6 temples in the grounds were simply breathtaking, neither of us have seen anything remotely like it before and to be honest we probably never will again......unless we go back of course! Its just mindblowing how much detail was on every pillar and post, and the scale of everything was simply immense, its hard to describe it, but it's the kind of place that gets the hairs on the back of your neck stand up (and the ones on Tan's palms we're doing likewise as I remember.......sorry Tan) (hes joking!)(no i'm not)( shut up!)(o.k hairy).....

We spent most of Monday there and travelled back Monday on the same god awfull route, we're now in Bangkok again but just for one more day before we fly to Bali tommorrow morning. We really dont want to leave Thailand, but we must move on. Next stop Bali!

Speak to you all soon, Ant and Tan xx

Us by a tree in the tomb raider temple!

Goan street market

Elephanta island Bombay.

Fish, Koh Tao.

We've now sussed how to put pic's on, so heres the ones we have on this site, some Indian some Thai.

Us Gateway to India, the royal Taj hotel and another building.

Goa-Anjuna-Sunset.