Trapped in Cambodia....

...but have finally escaped! Yes, yes, currently in the lovely confides of Laos (or Loase, as the Americans say) for the second day, after far too long in Cambodia.

Why is this? Due to the fact my passport was happily sitting on the desk of some bureaucratic crazed civil servant at the Chinese Embassy, it took nearly a full month to obtain a visa for China. Great. After all that, didn't even end up with a 3 month business visa, nor a 3 month tourist visa, but simply a 30 tourist visa. AGH! But, what little shenanigans did we get up to whilst waiting for the vehicle by which I can be internationally mobile...

Sihanoukville

Yes, the pink and glitter party was a stormer - as was my hangover. Basically, a crew of 11 of us managed to stagnate 11 days away in Snooky, punctuated with drunken nights, a couple of 'day trips out' and watching lots of DVDs. Very cultural, don't you think? Hannah, Rachel, Beth (3 girlies from Manchester), Georgie and Arran (a cute - engaged - couple from Norwich), Charlie and Michelle (an odd but lovely couple from London), Freddie and Sam (lovely boys from London) and Charlie (cap wearing chappie, also from London), and of course, Chloe and I, became the Monkey Republic 'Massive'. Oh yes, when there was noise in the bar - we were there. We managed to pick the choppiest day on the ocean to organise our 'group outting' to a little island off Snooky, 'Bamboo island.' The first 10 minutes were great, but as the boat rocked us all nearly overboard, and indeed, Chloe actually nearly went in, but unfortunately didn't and only obtained a stinker of a bruise on her arse, we realised that maybe it wasn't the best idea. Especially when the bottle of gin was handed round with the misnomer, 'its only water....'.

Another lovely day out was to the waterfall...we all munched on our pack lunch of sandwiches and crisps (very English), then minced around like little nymphs with flower garlands on our heads and soaked in the ambiance of the gushing waterfalls, despite being nearly washed away by the water flow!! EEK! A little bit of a Full Moon party went down at the 'legendary' Sessions, a shed on the beach but played good music, and we stormed 'Hannah's Castle' and had a lovely time singing 'Rule Brittania' from the top at the minions below (allegedly, I do not personally recall). A wickedly hairy game of 'Ring of Fire' well and truly killed us off another night, but it was all finished off in true Monkey style with another themed party - "Seaside". My god, there were many an amazing costume...from Jelly Fish (Georgie), Shark (Arran), Palm tree (Chloe) and of course, and incredible feat of engineering, car paint spray and fluffy bobbles (sea urchins...), and shells, I was a ship wreak!!! And that's not the only type of wreak I was by the end of the night...there was copious amounts of shaving foam and acrylic paint...on faces, feet, clothes, hair,..and somewhat more artistically, on the guy's guitar that he wanted accessorising! Hurrah! Think I may have ended up talking to a Buddha statue at the end of the night though....maybe I'll get to Nirvana yet.

THEN WE LEFT!! My goodness, it was the worst bus journey back to Phnom Pehn in our lives, still clad in our pyjamas, thank god we didn't look in the mirror. ROUGH. And since my camera was stolen in Snooky, a new one was in order, so a nice Nikon is now by my side. So, I mooched around Phnom Pehn to recapture some piccies, then hit the road to Battambang, a town in the North-East of Cambodia for the weekend, whilst Chloe and the girles made their way to Laos (I, of course, didn't have my passport. Hmm).

Battambang

Arrived to torrential rainfall, so looked truly trainspotter in my pink anorak and glasses. Get settled into a nice little guest house and then went off to explore the town...and found the most scrumptious cafe that sold the sweetest, warm, sticky Cinnamon swirl, ever, YUM. Awoke bright and early at 6am on Sunday morning, the day of Cambodian elections. Zipped through the countryside on the back of a moto, through the villages around Battambang, and it was great to see so many locals turn out to vote. Clambered up a giant hill to reach Phnom Sampeau, a temple crowning one of the only mountains in the area. It was converted into a torture chamber during the Khmer Rouge's reign, with people being pushed down into a cave, creating another mass grave of innocent people. Then up many, many stairs to Wat Banan, a temple known as 'mini - Angkor ', which was nice to get some pictures of, and gave amazing views of the surrounding lush green plains and rice paddies below. On the way back to town, my guide managed to give me a sneaky lesson on how to drive a motorbike...with gears!! It was brilliant, cruising through the villages, honking my little horn so the cows know I'm scooting past. Good driver apparently! Hurrah! New hobby...??? Then the afternoon was whiled away pottering around Battambang, exploring the local Wats and chattering away to the monk that live inside - mainly composed of English classes and punctuation correction!

Monday - travelling mission day. Back to Phnom Pehn at 6am...arrive at 1pm and am, at the DHL office collecting my passport, and at Vietnam Airlines by 1.30pm...booked at flight to Vientiane, Laos, and on the plane at 3.30pm. Laos at 5pm. Done. Next.

Oh wait - Vientiane appears to be completely full and I wander around in the rain for over an hour trying to find a bed. Soggy. Lovely. Met a nice chap from Haiti, who now lives in Jamaica, but it all got a bit surreal when he began to tell me he loved me, wanted to be his woman, oh no, wait, his wifey, and that we were destined to be together. Yeah. Right.

Next day, went to the biggest attraction in Vientiane with a couple of girls I met on my flash-packer flight to Laos, Pha That Luang, a large, golden temple. Lovely. Then hopped on the bus to Vang Viane to catch up with the ladies for tubing times...BRING IT ON!!!

Cambodian Capers

Sweating. Profusely. Beer sweats. Meat sweats. Wearing of man-made fibres induced sweats. The beads that collect on the brow of both myself and Klobo (albeit that they are more copious in amount for Klomosexual. Sweaty bitch. haha), seem to be gathering in number. It is a little disturbing to wake in a puddle and breath in the refreshing stench of must which clings to your pink primark seahorse pyjamas. Or is that just me? No, definitely Chloe too.

Anyway, that is just a little observation I thought I would share. So, what adventures have the Kloster and I been getting up to? We last left you in Kratie. An interesting place. No cold milk for your tea, which is frustrating. Simply a town that's focal point was a market, that due to the rain had a murky, grey moat surrounding it that you had to wade through in order to get anything. And flip-flops flick water/mud/dirty oozy ming all up your legs. But, we decided that eating from the market was the true traveller style, so we selected some hubble bubble from some big silver pans and treated our self to a freshly cooked fish (head and tail and EVERYTHING). Tasty as you like, perched on a wall in the twilight, with the mozzies gnawing at our ankles.

And then we went to see the e Irrawaddy dolphins of the Mekong River. These are funny looking things that are super endangered (only about 80 or so knocking about in the river!). It was so lovely to just sit on the lake (obviously in a long boat) and dolphin spot - one even gave us a little wave! But what was equally as enjoyable and interesting was the motorbike ride to the river through the Cambodian villages. I've come to realise that my blogs perhaps do not truly describe the places that we are visiting and the cultures we are being exposed to, so here is a little 'Reflections on Cambodia' that I penned whilst on a 12 hour (bumpy and lacking leg-space) bus journey...(yes, yes, no sudden deviations to travel writer for me!):

Ít is very humbling to see children engulfed in happiness though simple pleasures: running along with an old tyre; playing the drums with a cluster of empty plastic petrol canisters; a stone to throw and catch. To have the liberty to tinker about naked, dancing about to the rhythms and rhymes in their own imagination. To exercise a naive curiosity and enthusiasm for the unknown and to engage with it through squeaking "goodbye", "hello", and "good day!" to you as you sail through their village on the back of a motorbike - the quintessential way to soak up the sights.
The village. It appears, from the wind whisked backseat of the tantalisingly liberating back seat of a motorbike, as well as from behind the restrictive pane of the public bus, that villages are composed of wooden houses, laid upon stilts in order to elevate their dry sanctuary from the clutches of the pools of rainy season's milk (hmm...getting a bit keen on the creative writing here). 'Shops', consisting of the packets of noodles, jars of sweets and copious amounts of a single form of fruit or vegetable sprinkle the stretch of road. Children, dogs, cows (or rather, buffalo) and chickens amble freely amongst the wooden frames. Perhaps the freshest, most organic fruit and veggies are those that we gorged on here, for this is an agrarian country, with over 80% of the population being farmers. Durian fruit, lychees, bananas, soft coconut, jack fruit, Cale and corn. And rice. Lots of rice. There is an abundance of food, on every street corner, at every market, at every turn. Silver pots of mysterious liquids, grills of fish, chicken, pork and beef. Perhaps this is very much the indulgence of a people who suffered such severe starvation under a cruel 'revolutionary' regime but only 30 years ago. And their faces are beautiful - the most elegant ad open of all those in SE Asia I have had the pleasure to see. Round and inquisitive, with a clear, soft skin, giving a deceiving impression of youthfulness in cases which may not hold for other nationalities. A willingness to break into a brilliant smile when invited by a flash of mutual pleasure from oneself.

So how was that? Sickly or insightful? Fancied cracking out some creative writing skills, but hope that they gave you some insight into what it is like here. If not, there are plenty of pictures on facebook!

And then further north we went to the east of Cambodia - Rattakiri province. Banlung City is the provincial capital of ratanakiri province in Cambodia 's mountainous northeastern corner. And we were there for elephants!! Hurrah! Yes, we got them, but it was not easy. Firstly, we again had first hand experience or the distinct lack of road Cambodia on occasion boasts. And sitting at the back of the bus was an error, for it is amazing how high you can fly outta your seat when you hit a particularly generous pot-hole in the road. And we broke down. Twice. It took hours and it rained. Continuously. And in Ban Lung there seems to be but a sea of rich, red earth, that in torrential downpours turns into a red lava that inhibits cars (and definitely buses) from getting to where they want to be. Even better when you are on the back of a motorbike and you suddenly realise how far over you are leaning....but i didn't fall off. Thank the Lord. And elephant riding in the jungle was AMAZING!! We trekked through rubber plantations and then zipped our way around several beautiful waterfalls and then swam in a gorgeous big lake - and it was sunny all afternoon! Hurrah!

Then we had to take on the 12 hour bus journey back and down to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. 0 leg room and a big bag of lychees. Heaven, surely? But Phnom Penh was really cool - our guest house looked out onto a big lake that looked magical with the reflection of fairy lights dancing upon it. And we continued to be good travellers and walked lots along the waterfront and around the markets the first day, then missioned all the sights in one whole day. The most upsetting and sobering experience was visiting S-21. This was a school that was converted into a high-security prison during the Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge regime, and basically was a secret prison of torture and, invariably, death. It was sickening to walk through the prison cells that were once rooms of education and see the metal frames that had held so many innocent people whilst incomprehensible torture was inflicted on them. And each person - child, woman, man - had a photo taken on admittance to S-21. All these portraits were mounted on boards in other prison cells, and it was just simply so upsetting to see all the faces and know what was in store for them. If they did not perish within the confides of S-21, there were lorried out of Phnom Penh to the 'Killing Fields'. Mass graves were dug, sometimes by the victims themselves, before they are shot or hit on the skull. We went to the Killing fields after going around the prison, and a weird, eerie atmosphere resided there. More than 17,000 civilians were killed and buried in mass graves. This place is a chilling reminder of the brutalities of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. In the center of the area is a 17 story glass stupa which houses 8000 skulls exhumed from mass graves. Really tough experience. And then we went to the Royal Palace, which wasn't quite so emotionally difficult.

Party time, party time!! Yip, yip, yip - with Klo celebrating her 22nd year of gracing the planet, it was time to get to Sihanoukville, the seaside party place of Cambodia. I mean, after all that traveller education, a holiday by the seaside was well in order. Boozy banter as to be expected, but last night was particularly special. Klo's birthday party. After meeting Leroy in Malaysia, who happens to own the coolest guesthouse in Snooky, an order of a 'Pink and Glitter Party' was requested for Klo. And it was AMAZING!!!! Flyers, balloons and pink Sooooooooo much pink (and we mean, shocking pink) and copious amounts of glitter....a hardcore got really in the swing of things - babies (yes, girlies in nappies with pink bonnets), boys in pink hotpants and sporting pink plastic guitars, or having a bustle of flowers flowing behind you...or just being barbie with a dash of trannie (Klo and I)...and throw in a surprise chocolate brownie cake (sooo tasty) and a few pink cocktails and you are well away!!! Soooooooooo much fun!! But soooooo wasted! Hahaha! And there looks as though there has been a pink glitter bomb that has erupted across of shed of a room. I don't want to go back in there....

A home vs the road, and other issues...

My cousin lives in Pattaya, our next stop after Bangkok. It would be rude not to pop by and grab a wee bit of free accommodation. And the opportunity to be in a house. Not a hostel, or a guest house or a scummy something between the two...but a house. A home. With a kettle so you can just make a lovely brew when you feel like it. And watch dvds and pick dog hairs from off your pyjama bottoms...and run to the corner shop at 2am in the middle of a thunder storm because you need biscuits to really crown this Nirvana. And it was so lovely to see my big cousin, Ashley, and successfully get him to speak to his grandma (albeit after several beers) and act as a covert spy on behalf of the rest of the family to which we belong. And his dog is funny.

Greeted by a grinning Ashley, a fairly strapping, tattooed (naturally - it is Thailand) and a little bit burnt lad, sat astride a small, mint Vesper was a joy to see. Especially when he took off his very fetching helmet to reveal ginger hair (not natural by any means)...hahahaha. An excellent experience with the local beauty salon, evidently. A good night out was to be had, beginning with an introduction to Ashley's bar, 'Çrocodile Bar', where a spot of whiskey was enjoyed, before we were whisked off to his friend's bar where the party of the night was taking place. Oh yes. Surreal is perhaps what some people would call it. Picture your/a local boozer. I mean the locals. The hardcore locals. Basic demographics being male, 50 years+, balding, tattoos and, well, a substantial gut. Captured your imagination? Sprinkle in several tiny, skinny, Thai ladies (yip, these are the chappies' ladies/wives), Thai karaoke (a very happy Klo) and more whisky. Bloody mental. Thank goodness I was hammered, as it all seemed highly amusing at the time. And it was. But slowly, as the next couple of days progressed (which we mainly spent sleeping post-Thailand mayhem), it dawned on us that we were in fact the only Caucasian, females of the age of early-twenties in the entire bloody place and that everyone else fitted the description as above. The sex capital of Thailand. I felt slowly that my heart and soul were corroding with simply being there. Honestly, it was fine. I sound dramatic, but we felt drained by the time we left. But. One thing can definitely be said. Having a Sunday roast was the happiest I think I have felt in ages. A carvery and LOADS of fresh veggies...and don't forget the gravy!! AND THEN, we munched our way through an enormous apple crumble and custard. Bare in mind that two of the guys who were eating with us couldn't finish their main meal! WE ARE PIE MUNCHERS!! And we went fishing too! That was fun fun fun! Klo and I caught a BIG FISH (10 Kilos apparently) all by ourselves!

Next stop - Cambodia. People had mentioned that the journey to Siem Reap in Cambodia from Thailand was hell. Didn't feel like that to me as we cruised in our nice bus from Bangkok to the border...but then we got to the border. And it is called rainy season for a reason. SOAKED and wearing white linen trousers. Erroneous behaviour. At least I had my pink anorak (yep, I looked well fit). And then, once finally into Cambodia, in Poipot, we realised we were going to have to get a car to drive us to Siem Reap. 5 hours away. So in we popped with a couple of lovely chappies - Markus from Germany and Christoph from Switzerland - into a car that had a nice big crack down the wind screen, the front right tyre kept going flat, and not a lot of suspension. At least there was a good stereo. Shame there was no road to speak of. A river of mud as the rain lashed down ensured continual stops for the driver to give the headlamps a nice rinse off. But we arrived eventually. Just about.

Siem Reap is cool! And the Cambodian people are just lovely. They are so very sweet and friendly. Hmm. Cambodia appears to be somewhat different to the ol' Pattaya. Buzzing to be back on the backpackers trail, the first day we managed to potter around a market and buy some stupid trousers and a dress that has been described as; a poncho; a choir boy; interesting; pyjamas; ok for Cambodia but not for home...and so forth. I still wore it out that night....sporting my new hair cut - CAMBODIA STYLE! hehehe. $2 for a trim. Brilliant. I spit in your face, Toni & Guy. Mwahahahahahaha. So, with our new European buddies, we indulged in a spot of vino, before stepping out to the imaginatively named 'pub street' and basically, got a bit drunken. But I tried to get home with my friend...and we got lost...the tuktuk driver dropped us in the middle of no-where...so we had to stay in another guesthouse until the next day!! hahahaha. God I felt rough. But the reason people go to Siem Reap, is simply because it is the gateway to the monumental, Temples of Angkor. As the Lonely Planet articulately depicts, 'Angkor Wat is more than just an astounding architectural feat; it is the national symbol...it is a sumptuous blend of towers and sky, a magnificent spellbinding shrine to Vishnu with its captivating image replicated in the reflective lake below.' Sounds pretty impressive, eh? And there were lots of temples situated in the area around the main focal point, including the setting for Tomb Raider! After a good 5 hours tinkering about, it was definitely time for a brew!! And then a bottle of vino. Again. So what if we had to get up a 5.45am to catch our bus on time....yeah, feeling a little less than hot right now after 3 hours sleep and 9 hours of travelling. For we have made our way from West Cambodia to Central Cambodia. Kratie is in fact where we are. And we are trying to not eat chocolate and be good. Better get another brew down me then...