Cambodia!!! With 20 fun-filled illustrations!
[[ BIG WARNING TO ARACHNOPHOBES (ie /v) :: The 6th photo, after the sunset photo, has a spider. Skip from the sunset pic to the pic of Jos climbing off a bike ]]
On the 10th we caught a long bus ride from Bangkok to Siem Reap, in Cambodia. It took us over an hour to get through the border and several hundred metres of "no-man's land" in which a handful of expensive casino resorts operate outside the laws of both Thailand and Cambodia.
To get from the border to the Cambodian bus to Siem Reap, we climbed into a remorque-moto, which is a motorcycle with a crazily flimsy 'sidecar' to fit all four of us and our huge and heavy bags.
We spent a bit over 4 hours in the minibus from the border to Siem Reap.
The sunset was beeeeeeeeeeeeautiful! I had to turn around backwards in the bus and put my arms out the window, on a VERY bumpy road, to get this pic, one of about 30 I took, trying to get it right with all the shaking of the bus.
[[ SPIDER PHOTO IS HERE! ARACHNOPHOBES SCROLL DOWN ]]
When we got to Siem Reap, we got dropped off at a hotel which was nice enough and not too expensive. Up on the ceiling right above Jos and Holly's door was a massive hairy spider. This is the massive hairy spider:
The next day we rented bikes in the morning and started cycling around at random. The first place we came to was a soccer stadium with a banner for the Siem Reap U-18 Soccer Championships. It was very rundown and there were some little kids kicking a ball and a few more on bikes, so we went in and raced the little kids around the track a couple of times.
We then headed out of the main town down some random road, and after seeing a sign pointing down a street to the Crocodile Farm, veered that way. We arrived a few minutes later, only to find that there were no crocodiles. The lady still tried to sell us entry tickets, and we asked her what we were paying to see, since there were no crocodiles, but she didn't have any persuasive arguments so we continued on our journey.
A while later, way out in the middle of nowhere on a country road, we stopped at this family's roadside stall to have a beer, and we decided to strike up a conversation with a guy who teaches English (I can't remember his name offhand, but it was similar to Ron... might have been Rod)
Ron needed to use a toilet, so Rod took him across the street to his place, showed him the bachelor pad he built himself, then asked his neighbour if Ron could use his toilet since Rod doesn't have a toilet!
They were really nice, and we learned a lot about Rod and his family and friends. The people at the stand were his cousins or something.
This older gentleman was sitting there, paying attention to our conversation and smiling a lot but not understanding what we were saying, as he didn't speak English.
When I went over to him to show him the photo I took of him on my camera screen, I noticed he had an artificial leg from the knee down on one leg, so I asked Rod how that happened. He said his leg was shot during the Pol Pot regime (Khmer Rouge) sometime between 1975-79.
Not wanting to bother the family too much longer, we continued on our way and found another place to get a drink and some chips. While we were sitting there, a young boy came up to us and started talking to us in quite good English.
He told us about some old temple ruins nearby, so we got him to take us there. On the way we saw some cows pulling a cart. We saw lots of these, but this time I got my camera out finally.
Then we got to the temples, which were quite nifty. There was no one there, as this place is in the middle of nowhere, so the less touristy aspect definitely appealed to us.
On the ride back to the main road I saw this small child with his two cows. Mooooo.
To be continued... soon.
On the 10th we caught a long bus ride from Bangkok to Siem Reap, in Cambodia. It took us over an hour to get through the border and several hundred metres of "no-man's land" in which a handful of expensive casino resorts operate outside the laws of both Thailand and Cambodia.
To get from the border to the Cambodian bus to Siem Reap, we climbed into a remorque-moto, which is a motorcycle with a crazily flimsy 'sidecar' to fit all four of us and our huge and heavy bags.
We spent a bit over 4 hours in the minibus from the border to Siem Reap.
The sunset was beeeeeeeeeeeeautiful! I had to turn around backwards in the bus and put my arms out the window, on a VERY bumpy road, to get this pic, one of about 30 I took, trying to get it right with all the shaking of the bus.
[[ SPIDER PHOTO IS HERE! ARACHNOPHOBES SCROLL DOWN ]]
When we got to Siem Reap, we got dropped off at a hotel which was nice enough and not too expensive. Up on the ceiling right above Jos and Holly's door was a massive hairy spider. This is the massive hairy spider:
The next day we rented bikes in the morning and started cycling around at random. The first place we came to was a soccer stadium with a banner for the Siem Reap U-18 Soccer Championships. It was very rundown and there were some little kids kicking a ball and a few more on bikes, so we went in and raced the little kids around the track a couple of times.
We then headed out of the main town down some random road, and after seeing a sign pointing down a street to the Crocodile Farm, veered that way. We arrived a few minutes later, only to find that there were no crocodiles. The lady still tried to sell us entry tickets, and we asked her what we were paying to see, since there were no crocodiles, but she didn't have any persuasive arguments so we continued on our journey.
A while later, way out in the middle of nowhere on a country road, we stopped at this family's roadside stall to have a beer, and we decided to strike up a conversation with a guy who teaches English (I can't remember his name offhand, but it was similar to Ron... might have been Rod)
Ron needed to use a toilet, so Rod took him across the street to his place, showed him the bachelor pad he built himself, then asked his neighbour if Ron could use his toilet since Rod doesn't have a toilet!
They were really nice, and we learned a lot about Rod and his family and friends. The people at the stand were his cousins or something.
This older gentleman was sitting there, paying attention to our conversation and smiling a lot but not understanding what we were saying, as he didn't speak English.
When I went over to him to show him the photo I took of him on my camera screen, I noticed he had an artificial leg from the knee down on one leg, so I asked Rod how that happened. He said his leg was shot during the Pol Pot regime (Khmer Rouge) sometime between 1975-79.
Not wanting to bother the family too much longer, we continued on our way and found another place to get a drink and some chips. While we were sitting there, a young boy came up to us and started talking to us in quite good English.
He told us about some old temple ruins nearby, so we got him to take us there. On the way we saw some cows pulling a cart. We saw lots of these, but this time I got my camera out finally.
Then we got to the temples, which were quite nifty. There was no one there, as this place is in the middle of nowhere, so the less touristy aspect definitely appealed to us.
On the ride back to the main road I saw this small child with his two cows. Mooooo.
To be continued... soon.
posted by PhotoDiarist at 01:00
1 Comments:
thanx for the warning hottie ;)
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