I’m on my lonesome now but i’ll do a recap of mine and Julia’s mini adventure in south east asia.
We arrived in bangkok slightly concerned as a state of emergency had been declared on the captial but to be quite honest you would not know anything was going on. We went from temple to temple before heading to khao san road. A huge shock to me and Julia as we’ve been used to being the only westerners around, no one stared at us any more! We had quite a few beverages in the afternoon and I said to Julia there must be someone we know on this road…sure enough 10 minutes later someone shouted ‘Sophia!’. It was Andrew Pyrah from Lincoln hall (year below) but weirder than that he had bumped in to my brother, also travelling, in halong bay in Vietnam! us chengs certainly do like to get around…infamous really.
Had some killer cocktails on the street bars and chatted to all sorts of travellers, some are very fresh faced and on a lads do bangkok trip others were very weathered and had obviously stayed in
the sun for too many years.
We went up to Kanchanaburi and took in the bridge over the river Kwai, we stayed in a bamboo floating raft on the kwai itself, me and julia had a very romantic night in playing the game..’if you were stuck in a bamboo cube…’. We then took the train up to Namnok, the stunning scenery was in stark contrast to the treatment of the POWs who had actually built the railway.
In a flash (!) we had arrived in cambodia and immediately fell in love with the place. Pnom Penh is fantastic, the lakeside area where the backpackers stay had phenomenal views the whole place is just so chilled out. In my opinion superior to Thailand. We spectacted a cambodian party with interesting singing and dancing even when the rain started they just carried on dancing some semi-naked.
Our sight seeing day was pretty tough going from the Killing Fields to S21, the school converted into a torture area, some 2 million people are thought to have died as a result of the Khmer Rouge regime. I was pretty ignorant until I had got there, but that’s a quarter of the population and when you look around you can see they are still recovering from the atrocity. The poverty is very extreme here. Me and Julia spent quite a lot of the day in silence. I couldn’t believe that the Khmer Rouge still had a seat in the UN up until ’91 or something and only now are the tribunals taking place to bring the persecutors to justice. We finished our day by Watching Killing Field the film…both of us in tears by the end.
From Cambodia’s low point to their highest; we went to Siem Reap and by sunset we were at the Angkor Wat temples watching one of the most
stunning sunsets I have ever seen. Both of us had wanted to go there for a number of years and the site itself did not let us down. Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, a city which held 1 million people at the time London had a population of 50,000. Banyon and Ta Phrom, where the jungle has taken
over and huge trees invade the temple. Lara Croft was also filmed there which we were quite excited by.
For our last night together we splashed out on a couple of Pitchers at Angkor What? the name of which i found hilarious. We realised we were
pretty drunk by the time we stood up, managed to order ourselves a cambodian bbq and cook ourselves snake and other such delicacies. Slightly emotional as we staggered back and I passed out in our 50p accommodation/shack type thing…Julia proceeded to get rained on as the storm passed over.
She left for Bangkok early in the morning, she’s off to some thai islands for some R&R before going back to uni and living with new housemates
(who won’t be a touch on her old ones- jokes!)
As for me (ah you’ll see) i chilled out, went on the back of a moto for 45mins in the rain to a landmine museum, there are still millions scattering Cambodian countryside. Then I was befriended by 4 lads from
Manc..who we later established all know spooner (a good mate from uni) and came from his home town. They had been taking the piss out of his best man’s speech around the time he was ringing Kate for tips!
small world.
I took the boat early in the mornin to Battambang, fantastic journey, although i was bleary eyed where I’m taking it easy before heading back to the capital and then the beach. soon after that I am heading to Vietnam where I am meeting Wiggy for some more madness.
sophiaspeaking 