Ahh Thailand. Depends who you are of course but myself I find it very hard to find things to complain about around here. As long as you follow the very simple rule of patience this place a freakin cake walk. There are some things that you have to deal with, like the massage ladies, that make it a little harder but have fun with it and again, have patience. The reason I'm saying this is because just outside of our World Inn hotel is a little booth where the ladies who work out of our hotel gather. Going in and out of our hotel you would think the ladies would realize that Dave and I weren't interested. And yet every time we would have to go through the usual banter and rebuffing... every time. Not to mention when they grab your hand and won't let go or block your path, but they're always nice and fun to jest with. Of course we could always try not being so cheap and get a place a little more expensive without the ladies but it is what it is. Well is seems the man who was in the room next to Dave and I (we've nicknamed him Ol' Slappity Slap) must have given in to a couple of them because we had the misfortune of being woken up early by the lot of them around 6am. It's a weird thing when you are woken up by slapping noises and not knowing where it's coming from... especially when you're sharing a room. Dave and I had planned on an early morning anyway to make our way to Cambodia and this just helped us get up and out even earlier. Having been to Bangkok many times and especially the last couple trips here, Dave and I have gotten pretty good at the local transit system. So we hopped on the BTS Skytrain and headed for the end of the line, the Mo Chit station. From there is was a quick taxi to the Northern Bangkok bus station for an 8am bus to the Thai/Cambodian border. We arrived just in time to grab a seat and after 5 minutes we were on the way. The bus ride isn't much to talk about except for what seemed like random police road blocks to check the Thai people for their passports or immigrant cards. Occasionally pulling people off but mostly just poking around. When we got to the Thai border we were dropped off at a shop trying to sell us Cambodian Visas for about 1500 baht ($45) which is weird because this is a municipal bus and yet it's still part of the system to scam travelers. We declined the Visas and started walking to the border crossing. There was a little confusion because we didn't have photos for our Visas which some people had but it turned out not to be a problem. We're not sure if it's because we were Canadian or just another way to get money out of unsuspecting travelers but either way we sailed on through. The Visa cost us 900 baht ($30) each and was pretty straight forward. Once done with that we headed into the no mans land. The area between borders that is littered with garbage, dirty children carrying smaller dirtier children and all kinds of human riff raff. How they are allowed to exists between borders is beyond me but there it was. Shortly after we crossed from Thailand into no mans land we noticed a young man was trailing us. He started to offer advice on getting through the Cambodian border and although the process is straight forward helped anyway. He had credentials which he said was his government issued ID for helping tourists but we were sure it was just another scam. He really just offers advice we don't need and tries to get us to travel with his bus company. Since they are all basically the same depending on the transport you wish to take we decided we would just follow along and made the most of it. We bought our bus tickets for 300 baht ($10) each and tipped the man enough for him to set up a ride for us when we arrived in Siem Reap. The bus ride was pretty uneventful except for the obligatory stop at a random family's restaurant to eat whether we wanted to or not. Again part of the system to get us to spend money locally. On arrival in Siem reap we were met by a Mr. Ly who was holding up a sign that said Mr. Josh on it. Kinda cool and so much better than trying to arrange a ride upon arrival. We were quickly out of the "Bus Station" as they were closing the gate so the rest of the passengers couldn't leave without making a deal with all the local Tuk Tuk and moped drivers. Originally Dave and I had a couple of guest houses in Siem Reap we wanted to check out but considering the time we actually arrived we decided to just let Mr. Ly take us to the guest house he worked out of. It was called the Green Town guest house and for $10 US it had hot water and a TV (which we never used) which was nice. We agreed to the room and put our stuff away. We went with Mr. Ly to the night market for a couple of rain ponchos in case it threatened to rain the next day and then made plans for him to pick us up at 5:20am the next morning. We wanted a full day at Ankor Wat including the sunrise and sunset so it was relatively early to bed. As we woke to the alarm at 5am the next morning all we could hear was a thunderous rain storm. Good thing we had bought the ponchos but poor Mr. Ly was stuck riding his moped while Dave and I were being towed along behind in the Tuk Tuk. He had lowered the rain guards on it so we were nice and dry for the 10 minute ride. Miraculously though when we arrived at the gates to Ankor the rain instantly disappeared. We took it as an auspicious sign and put away our ponchos and rolled up the rain guards. The clouds were still hanging around so we didn't get the sunrise over Ankor Wat that we had hoped for but all things considered it was a great start to the day. I won't go into too much detail about Ankor for the simple fact that words just wouldn't do it justice. But I'll give you a few highlights. We spent the first couple hours at Ankor Wat which was stunning as always except they were doing some restoration work which meant we couldn't get into some parts and other parts were blocked from view. Either way impressive as always. At about 8am we moved on to Ankor Thom which is a huge complex housing many different temples including Ankor Thom City and the famous Bayon Temple which has the spires with huge faces on all 4 sides. Mr. Ly took us for some breakfast within the Ankor Thom sight and then we left him there to do some exploring. It really is an extraordinary place. By now the sun was out in full force although a little overcast. Dave and I were drinking water as fast as we could but were literally sweating it out faster than we could replenish it. After about four hours of climbing temples and just wandering around in awe we were exhausted. Completely exhausted... we almost called it quits for the day. But we met back up with Mr. Ly, inhaled some more water and decided to press on. We had made a deal with Mr. Ly that because we only had one day for Ankor we would cram a three day tour into that one day. Which meant that after Ankor Thom we headed outside the main temple complex to about 35 miles away to go see the Banteay Srei complex. The trip out was just what we needed. It gave us time to rest and replenish and of course the countryside was amazing. Rice fields sprinkled with palm trees and the odd stone spire just sprouting out of the ground. Banteay Srei was the oldest of the temples we saw by about 200 years bringing it in around the 11th century. We took our time and wandered a few quiet paths around the temple before heading back to find Mr. Ly. Dave and I have had a few early days that we've crammed some activities into so when we saw that it was only noon and we had done so much it was a bit of a relief. We had lots to see still and plenty of time to do it. Mr. Ly took us back to the main temple area where we could sit around and have some lunch before moving on to our final two temples. One of the things to deal with around Ankor is all of the children running around selling things. As soon as we arrived for lunch, like anywhere we stop, the kids come out of everywhere. I had one young thing trying desperately to sell me any of the little trinkets she had. I have a really hard time saying no to all these kids since they insist the money is so they can go to school, but since I had already bought books on Ankor, postcards and other trinkets years before and a few bracelets and fridge magnets earlier in the day I had to turn her down... repeatedly... for abut 5 minutes. She just would not give up. For some reason they don't bug Dave at all. I must have sucker written all over me because they seem to zero in on me in no time. We got through lunch and moved on to the next temple. With all the rain that fell before we arrived the path to the temple was flooded but besides the adventure of it the water was very refreshing. The temple was a man made aqueduct which was cool but with the flooding there wasn't much to see. The path up to the temple seemed to be the highlight. We took some pictures and enjoyed the water for a bit before moving on to the last temple, which was huge. We were inside looking around for maybe 10 minutes when a young boy around ten came up and introduced himself in perfect English. This brilliant little man spends his mornings in school and then comes to this temple to show farang (white people) around in the hopes of a tip. Well he earned his 1000 baht ($30) tip in spectacular fashion. He knew everything about that temple and spit out facts at us faster than we could take it in. He also took us climbing onto certain parts of the temple, which we never would have found on our own, to take some incredible pictures. We handed over one of our DSLR cameras so he could get a pic of Dave and I and he started snapping away, telling us where to stand and whether or not he liked the photo he would make us pose again so he could get a better shot. Fantastic kid. At the end he shook our hands and we handed over the tip. We laughed as he proceeded to shout and show it off to the other kids, showing his age for once. Dave and I took some more photos and then noticed him trucking off down the dirt road practically skipping. His job done for the day as he had apparently made enough money. It was getting close to 4 o'clock and everything was pretty quiet as most people had finished for the day. There is one old temple there at the top of a tall hill and if you time it right you can climb up there and watch the sun set with everyone else while sitting around the temple. Dave and I were exhauseted from the day though and decided to head back to the bungalow. As we passed the hill to the temple we could see a few stragglers like us and tons of buses dropping off the wealthy tourists to watch the sunset. There was a steady stream of them heading up the long steep hill. It is a spectacular sunset from up there, which I've had the fortune of seeing before but we just didn't have the energy. As it turned out we had lucked out big time. By the time we got back to our bungalow, about 15 minutes away, and the sun was about to set, the weather changed dramatically. The rain came down in a torrent and what little light was left had vanished. All we could think about was all of those people stuck up on that hill in the dark and pouring rain trying to make they're way down a rocky dirt trail. We realized how lucky we were not just in having a day without any rain but also getting out of there just in time to avoid any potential dangers on that hill. Either way, we had our perfect day out at Ankor and retired to our guest house for the night. We made arrangements for Mr. Ly to come back to get us the next day at 10am for some more exploring around Siem Reap and then headed off to shower and have a big dinner. The rest of that night we just relaxed, watched the rain and checked out emails. The next day Dave and I were a little worn out so we decided just to let Mr. Ly show us around a bit. Of course like everything in Cambodia with the tourists there are certain places he would like to take us. Cambodian owned places instead of the foreign owned which was just fine with Dave and I. First we went out for a nice lunch and then off to a Cambodian massage parlor to try and work out some of the stiffness from the day before. Well I wanted a head, neck and shoulder massage and Dave wanted a foot massage because his sandals had done a number on him the day before. After some stunted communications on what we each wanted they walked us both to the back and put us in a little room where we were told to change into some pajamas. We did so and then the girls proceeded to beat the crap out of us for the next hour. Kneading, poking, cracking, stretching and somehow the ol' cheek spread which is more than slightly uncomfortable. I assume they were trained and this was just the Cambodian style but I was feeling sore after and David had a stiffer back than before we arrived. And to top it off Dave never did get his foot massage. After that kinda strange experience we were again content to just let Mr. Ly lead the way so he took us to a War Museum. There they had pretty much what you would expect. Old military equipment and firearms, explosives and booby traps. As sad as most of the displays are it was our tour guide, younger than the both Dave and I, who showed us around and explained things to us the way his side, who battled against the Khmer Rouge, survived and fought. I don't remember his name but when his parents were killed at 13 he joined the fight against the government. Somehow we hadn't noticed but when he was showing us how he used to defused mines we realized he was missing three fingers on his left hand. He explained that when he was defusing a bomb the detonator had gone off in his hand and although not completely blown off his fingers they were so severely damaged that the field medic had three fellow soldiers hold him down as he used a wire to saw them the rest of the way off. His side didn't have any pain killers or meds for surgery. Then our guide explained how when his friend was defusing a clamour mine and was blown in half our guide was standing behind him and his body was now littered with ball bearings... pinching his skin and showing us a few still stuck in his body. I even have a picture of myself holding our guides AR13 rifle that he used during the war. All in all a sobering reminder of what Cambodia has gone through in the recent past. We headed from there back to the guest house to freshen up before meeting back up with Mr. Ly to finish the night with a buffet dinner and some traditional Cambodian style dancing. The food was great and plentiful and the dancing was lots of fun to watch. Most white people I've seen in the same place in a while which seemed strange but lots of fun. We made a short trip to the night market for a little more poking around but then it was off to the guest house for the rest of our last night in Cambodia. While there we heard about some flooding and a dam break at Ankor that stranded some 300 tourists out at Banteay Srei. They had to be picked up by the military and again it made us realize how lucky we were to have our day turn out so great at Ankor. Mr. Ly arranged for us to get an early taxi the next day which was great because that meant we could have it for just the two of us and fly back to the border in under 2 hours. We thanked Mr. Ly and paid him about $45 US for the two days he drove us around. The next morning we were up early, into the taxi and back at the Cambodian border town Poi Pet in no time. We flew through the border, hopped on the closest bus and made it back to the World Inn hotel by mid afternoon. Much better timing that the trip there. We put our bags back in the same room we had previous and went just across the street for a beer. A single beer... we seem to say that a lot around here. Just one beer. Never seems to go that way. Well it is what it is I guess, the start of another crazy night. This was on Friday night and we were leaving for Krabi Town the next day. More adventures for the next post.
As I sit in a quiet little internet cafe on Tonsai beach I realize how incredibly long it has taken for me to write this post. Off and on for about 7 days now alternating between computers I can find and my phone if I can get WiFi. In the mean time so much has happened that I still need to post about. It seems most of our days are early mornings filled with things to do and then late nights. I'm exhausted and sore. If this post seems a little convoluted or has spelling errors I apologize but we will be heading to our final stop of Koh Samui soon and I'll have access to a more consistent internet feed. I'll try to post smaller more frequent posts. I feel I'm writing these in a style more for myself anyway I guess but I'll try to get to the highlights faster. Like the boat tour that beat up the lot of us but was stunning and exciting all the same. And the smoking pot in the Small World bar while singing along to No Woman, No Cry surrounded by fantastic people on Tonsai. Life doesn't get much better than it has been these last couple of weeks. Tomorrow we have our last day here with more exploring planned. I'll share it all later.
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