Cambodia

We have been having so much fun in Thailand that we have been doing a horrible job of updating the blog. That being said, I will do my best to recap the highlights of the last three weeks.

After riding rickety one speed chinese-made bicycles around the Sukothai ruins, we got back on the train for a 7 hour journey to Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand. I was surprised to realize how commercialized the tourist industry in the city was, as seemingly every store front offered some sort of tour. We came prepared to do some sort of trek and eventually signed up for one. It turned out to be a bit of a disappointment as we were shuttled to a river valley that was teeming with elephant riders, brown water rafters, and several different groups of trekkers. After a pleasant 4 hour walk through the country side we arrived in "a hill tribe village", which was really 6 or 7 bamboo huts on stilts next to the river in which each group of 8 to 12 tourists slept, and adjacent to each was another small hut where a local family lived and cooked food for all the tourists. The "hill tribe village" was actually a tourist ghetto. The next day our guide and a few other locals built a bamboo raft for us to take down the river, back to our starting point. When Lauren and I, two Italians, and three Aussies got on with all of our luggage hanging from a bamboo triangle in the middle, the whole thing sank about two feet under water. Thus ensued a long process of then adding more bamboo and us getting back onto the raft only to watch it submerge again. We eventually headed down the swollen, rainy season sized river, with me on the back with a 10ft long piece of bamboo helping, along with two other guys, push us away from the rocks. It was really fun except for the knowledge that our expensive camera was about a foot from the water the whole time. When we reached the end of the rafting, we climbed onto some elephants and walked on a dirt road for about 30 minutes, and fed them bananas.

Back in Chiang Mai, we signed up for a thai cooking class that was fantastic. They took us to a local market to show us what everything was and then drove us out to the school/farm where we saw most of the ingredients of the dishes growing. We spent the day making 6 dishes each and stuffing ourselves full. To all of our Seattle friends, get ready for some thai food when we return. If you think it is good we may open the 9th Thai restaurant in Fremont.
We had a long travel day from Chiang Mai by airplane to Bangkok and immediately out to Trat, in the Southeast, by bus. Then we got a ferry out to Ko Chang to start some serious beaching. We met a Swedish couple (Fredrik and Anna) on the ferry ride and spent the next week with them. We stayed in a great place on the west side of Ko Chang that had beautiful, nice rooms, and a pool overlooking the ocean, plus free use of a motorbike. We spend most of our time on the island cruising around on the motorbike, exploring the beaches, hiking to waterfalls (the interior of the island steep with thick jungle), and visiting small fishing villages. We were planning on staying on Ko Chang, but the Swedes really wanted to find a boat to take us to one of the islands to the south (in the National Park). Fredick did the leg work of finding a fishing boat to Ko Mak and we made the 2.5 hour journey through an archipelago that reminded me a lot of the San Juans, except way hotter. Ko Mak was an island paradise except for one major thing, they only clean up the beaches during the high season, and we were definitely not in the high season. So unfortunately the beaches were littered with garbage, but on the up side the whole place was deserted and every resort that was open was offering discounts in excess of 50 percent. So we spent 3 days in a beautiful little bungalow on the beach (which thankfully, the resort cleaned up). Every night while we were on the island we experienced the most violent thunderstorms I have ever seen. It was as though we were in a hurricane, and then 10 minutes later it would be over. We wanted to stay on Ko mak forever, but our schedule and Cambodia were beckoning. We bid farewell to our new Swedish friends and boarded the speedboat back to the mainland.

On the bus ride to the Cambodian border I got to share the front seat with a buddhist monk who spent 2 hours practicing his English with me. It is somehow peaceful sharing a ride with a monk, even if you can't understand 90 percent of what he is saying.
At the border I threatened to call the immigration in Phenom Phen if the visa guys wouldn't give us visas for the official 20 dollars instead of there requested 1200 Baht (about 35 dollars). this was met with an appearance by the head agent and a lot of yelling. We eventually settled on 25 dollars under threats of them returning us to Thailand. After issuing the visas, the head man came outside and said he lived in Chicago for a time and said I should call him if I am ever there. Strange.

Then the taxi mafia engulfed us, explaining that there was no way to Phenom Phen (3 hours) without paying 100 dollars for a taxi. We noticed that two other foreigners had crossed the border and ended up sharing a cab with two guys from South Africa that live in Cambodia on a mining project. We had a great ride to the capital as the LPG system on the car froze up a couple times and heavy rains and a hell bent driver made death seem only entertainingly possible, not actually possible.

So we have been in Phenom Phen for a couple days, learning about Cambodia's tragic recent past by day, and drinking it off with the South Africans at night. We really like Phenom Phen, as large parts of it are beautiful, the people are super friendly, and it is all a manageable size with limited smog. Being shown around by a couple semi locals doesn't hurt either.
We leave for Siam Reap and the famous temples of Angkor Wat tomorrow, then back into Thailand for one last visit to the beach.

We have been trying to upload photos, but have been experiences technical difficulties, stay tuned though. Here are 5 pics we managed to get uploaded
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/keith8denton/ThailandAndCambodia1?authkey=2URR0urIDys