Dehli Belly/ Hong Kong Dog

What is a trip to South East Asia without getting sick and spending a whole day in your hotel room hoping to die. 
After a awesome afternoon photographing hundreds of stalls at the local "Old Market" I was starving and was as usual craving MEAT.  I had seen some fried chicken and last time I tried it, it was so good. So I checked it was still hot and got a nice big leg piece. I got about half way through and thats all I could do.  I gathered it was because I had an empty stomach and it was deep fried. I would later find out that market chicken is NOT OK.

We moved on and had a few more Angkor's at the Pub and some dinner and made our way home.  The next day we explored the city and went out for dinner that night with some other travellers we had met.  We were nearly home and I started feeling a bit dodgy in the stomach.

The next 24hours were not pretty at all. Im am glad Jazz made the call to not travel to Phnom Penh by bus as we had planned.  I have never been so sick with a stomach bug, with a fever and a serious case of the runs I was in bed shaking and aching all over for the whole day.  When I wasn't trying to sleep, I was watching crime dramas on a small tv across the room, and by the end of that day I was sick of CSI and Law and Order. 

We got some advice from our amazing Canadian Hostel owners as to what I might have come down with.  They recommended drugs.. so much to my displeasure Nurse Jasmine was sent out to get supplies a few times in the day, I wasn't so happy with the thought of her walking around Cambodia by herself, but she came back. 

It turns out you can pretty much buy anything over the counter at the road side phamacy so Jasmine came back with 3 sachets of Electrolites and some antibiotics.  Add some paracetamol to the cocktail and repeat every 4 hours and that was me for a whole night and day.  Plain French sticks for breakfast and lunch and plain steamed rice for dinner, yum!!

The next morning I woke up feeling much better, the aches had mostly gone and I had a little more energy. I put my quick recovery down to the prayers of freinds and family plus the medication I was on.  Whatever it was I was happy to no longer be lying helpless in bed.  Another French stick for breakfast for day 2 and we had to pack our bags for Phnom Penh.

Rick

Angkor Whaaat?

After an interesting introduction to Cambodia, we were feeling a bit skeptical.

But nevertheless we had to venture out into Siem Reap... We explored the streets around the old market area including the infamous Pub Street.

Angkor Sunrise
(Click to enlarge)

Our main reason for going to Cambodia was to visit Angkor Wat. A huge complex of stone temples built for king Suryavarman II as the capital city and state temple hundreds of years ago.  The first major building began around the 12th Century and continued for 5 centuries.  The stone was transported over 40km and building for Angkor Wat specifically took only 40 years, however one modern engineer estimated it would take 300 years to complete Angkor Wat today.  The most well known of the temples is Angkor Wat, however there is said to be over 1000 temples in the 150sq km area that makes up entire complex.

Mr T

Angkor Wat was incredible, Rick was keen to get a sunrise shot so we arose at 4am and Mr T; our tuk tuk driver drove us to Angkor. We had seen photo's and researched a bit, but I wasn't quite sure what to expect. As we walked over the moat that surrounds Angkor Wat, all you see is an immense silhouette, it's quite mysterious as you're wondering if it's really that big! The sunrise was a non event, but worth getting up early because as more light filters through you gradually see more and more of how amazing Angkor Wat is. We explored all the corridors and the chambers inside of Angkor Wat and just marvelled at the amazing construction that the Khmer had somehow built over 800 years ago.

Bayon, Angkor Thom

We moved through South Gate onto Angkor Thom, to the Bayon temple. The construction was far more haphazard than Angkor Wat, and seemed to be less thought out. Bayon was built by a different King and seemed to add areas onto the temple as he saw fit. It was by far our favourite temple, with multi levels and peaks with huge four sided faces. Access to upper levels was unrestricted if you could make your way up the tiny steps made for little asian feet.

Ta Prom

After some pineapple from a street stall and a few not so significant temples we headed to Ta Prohm, the temple made famous by Tomb Raider, was also very cool. For the most part it was far less restored, though our visit was interrupted by a lot of workers and scaffolding. The trees were taking over, they were growing amongst the green moss covered stones as if they were claiming back their forest. The massive tree roots were growing through the stones and toppling over whole walls and choking entire buildings! Photo's without a group of 30 typical camera clutching tourists proved difficult, however Rick still managed to fill up 12GB worth of memory cards.

Monkey vs Tuk Tuk

There is so much to take in, it's really mind blowing and by 1pm we were brain fried! We headed back via the monkey's which proved to be Rick's highlight of Asia! Masses of monkey's lined the road, waiting to be fed by tourists, who bought banana's off the street stall hawkers. As soon as we stepped off our tuk tuk there were monkey's all over it, tearing at the canvas and playing with everything.

We trekked back to Pub Street and refueled on a traditional Cambodian barbeque, chowing down snake, crocodile, prawns, beef and chicken. All washed down with a few glasses of 50cent Angkor Pilsner beer. 

Sweet Bar

Cambodia.. First impressions

Cambodia..
It didn't start well for Cambodia.. But in the end we loved it.

Any country that you enter after 30+ hours of travelling is gonna get a bit of a rough deal.
We had been researching how to get into Cambodia for a few weeks and reading up online about the infamous land border crossing!
Stories of tourists paying $40 dollars for their visa when the official price is $20 US dollars because of massive corruption by the border police. Other stories of people offering to help carry your bags only to charge you for that offer. Even worse was one we heard about visa 'agents'..'helping' with paperwork where they do everything for you, issuing you a 'visa', charging you more than at the border only having to actually pay again at the border for a legitamate visa..

With all this and more in our minds we still decided to do the land border crossing because it was way cheaper than flying direct in SuratThani.

So we are in a Tuk Tuk  to the border 7kms away with some other backpackers on another in front of us, and the Tuk tuks stop at a TAT( tourist information office/tourist rip of office) and I yell and don't even let him stop, then the driver drops us off on the side of the road.. Men with crisp shirts and ties come out with clip boards and try and 'help' us with the visa papers.. Once again we don't listen, and we walk away, as we had read all about the scams that run close to the border.

We finally get to the border and have to walk to the office.. Luckily we had US dollars already to avoid even more scams. We pass thru Thai visa control and then enter no mans land. Imagine a wide dusty road with huge trucks, cars, motos and hand pushed rickshaw-type carts piled high and dragging on the ground, plus loads of people everywhere.. plus a huge casino (illegal in Cambodia-so just build it on land no one governs...) and so we walk 1km with everyone else and enter a office with men with guns all leaning against a counter with a glass screen.. He hands us a form and then tells us it's $20 US plus 100baht..(ie corruption) I tell him was have no baht (I did have some) he gets all hard ass and says "you borrow off your friend", he wasn't gonna budge so I gave him the money and he takes my passport and photo and passes it thru the window and tells me to sit down. 10 mins later he points to me and gives me my passport back with very shiny... slighty official hand written full page visa with my photo all in there.. We wait for the other tourist friends and then walk on again. 

A very friendly (caution, danger danger) man tells us that we need one more stamp and leads us down the street to another pretty much identical looking office, so we stand with 100 other people and wait for another 15, they check our visas (fingers, toes crossed) and we get a stamp.. Then this lovely chap leads us to the 'free' bus to the government transport station 15 mins away.

So we get to the transport station to get to Siem Reap and find that buses are $9 each and taxis are $48 for the whole car (5-9 people). We and everyone had read that taxis we supposed to be $30 and bus $3! So I took it upon myself to bargain/scrap out the ticket officer, after both getting pissed off I got him down to 39 dollars for a whole taxi, note we were only putting 4 passengers in one car, one girl went with locals and they had 19-nineteen people in one 5 seated sedan!!

So for $9 US each we take the Toyota Camry (99% of cars we saw in Cambodia) 2hrs to Siem Reap. As usual in Asia nothing is normal and we get dropped in the rain to the Tuk Tuk station couple kms out of town, we hadn't booked anything, so took he first hostel we could, as by this stage we were quite tired and just needed to sleep. That ends the epic journey of 30+ hours which we call "greatest travel fail yet". Though it's a lesson learned, and we definately know our limits now!

Rick

30+ hrs overland travel - AKA - Worst Travel Fail Ever

It's been a while since we've posted... We spent two solid days on the road travelling up to Cambodia!

And when we say two days we mean it. We got on the ferry at Koh Phangan at 12:30pm to go back to Bangkok the onto Cambodia.

After about 3 hrs on the ferry, we landed at Surathani and then carried on by bus to a meal break at the bus company headquarters, where we had to change bus. We ate 40baht Pad Thai and waited for the next bus to arrive. About 6:30pm that bus left for Bangkok, this would be home till 6am!! Some sleeping, Kindergarten Cop and another Leonardo DiCaprio movie, lots of iPod games, some more attempts to sleep, another movie (probly with Leonardo DiCaprio), and we arrive 18 hrs since we left Koh Phangan!

Turns out it's actually 4am, a bus two hours ahead of schedule in Asia that unheard of. "Lucky" for us we can try catch the 6am train to Cambodia. So we Tuk Tuk across town from Khao San Road to Hua Lumpong Train station to find the ticket station closed till 5:30am. So some more sleeping in a huge open station room with hundreds of locals from whole family's, fluroesently safron colored monks, business people and stall owners with all their goods waiting. We grab our tickets, oh did i mention it's 3rd class only, with air conditioning Thai style.. (windows) but they were 48 Baht each for a 5 hr trip!

The train was actually quite enjoyable, and no doubt would have been much more so; if we hadn't already been non stop travelling for 20 hrs at this stage!

A lot of bumps, a lot of people, a lot of stops and 6hrs later we arrive at Aranyaprathet which is the last Thai stop before the border. We jumped in a Tuk Tuk and headed for the Cambodia Border!

Ciao for now!

Rick

Koh Phangan/ Koh Pha Ngan

Giant ants having a perve

Day 12 dawned and we headed to the pier for the ferry to get from Koh Tao to Koh Pha Ngan. We exchanged our tickets for a brightly colored sticker so we could join the gang of passengers. Escorted to a table with two spare seats in a restaurant where everyone was waiting for the ferry, we met an Irish couple. As Rick leaped over the banister on to the sand, I chatted with the Irish pair. Simon and Louise were heading to the full moon party too, and their travel plans were long term which put us on the same page... that and the fact that we weren't 18/ on a gap year/ looking to score; like almost everybody else!!

A sleepy ferry ride and a few hours later we reached Koh Pha Ngan and decided to head to the same beach as Simon and Louise. They had pre-booked accommodation, as full moon weeks are usually packed, and they told us later they were really worried we wouldn't find anything left. With our typical kiwi attitude, we thought "she'll be 'right" and didn't book anything. We rolled up to the hotel and Rick checked out the bungalows... Small with an outdoor bathroom, and way over our budget.

So I sat on the beach, guarding our packs while Rick set off in the heat of the day to scope out a cheaper room. A good half hour later, sweating profusely he informs me the guest house next door to the original hotel was by far the sweetest deal. A huge room with a TV/ mini fridge/ air con/ hot shower and bath/ flushing toilet that you can actually put toilet paper down! Oh and a pool. It was Ricks birthday week, the room being slightly over our budget, but we splashed out and took it. We compared rooms with Simon and Louise and we scored big time... Sorry guys!

After getting settled we had lunch with them and went to check out Hat Rin that evening. Hat Rin is where they host the infamous Full Moon Party. The roads around the island are ludicrous, a mix of poorly concreted roads, masses of scooters and overloaded taxi vans with tourists crammed in, oh... and the soundtrack is a continuous horn honking.

The next day was Rick's birthday! The big 26 in Thailand on a tropical island, not a bad way to start. I tried to spoil him as much as possible, with massages and making him cups of coffee etc. We also treated ourselves to a decent breakfast; bacon, eggs, baked beans, hash browns, sausage and all the rest. For dinner we went to an amazing restaurant on the beach, preceded by myself making a stupid comment about not wanting to spend too much money and totally forgetting it was Rick's birthday... oops!

The remainder of the week we just spent relaxing in the air con, swimming in the guest house pool, Rick editing photos and eating at various restaurants/ street stalls, having a few sly drinks on the beach and hanging out with fellow tourists. 

One of the best finds this week was REAL coffee. Like a full blown espresso coffee, both of us almost in tears we ordered coffee. Check out the crema in the photo. If there wasn't a large slab of concrete separating us and the Thai barista we would have smothered her in cuddles!

The night of June 16 was full moon party night and we rolled down to Hat Rin in a share taxi. Most of the punters were decked out head to toe in fluoro, not really my style I opted for just the fluoro body paint, Rick taking it to the extreme decided he would be a smurf. He proceeded to paint all his limbs and his face blue, wrapping Simon's unwanted white t-shirt around his head in smurf like fashion. We all had a great night, drinking out of buckets and double-taking at all the advertising at each bucket stand. Rick cranked out his glo-poi's which were a hit, literally for some of the people passing by! By 5am we were back at our guesthouse laying on the loungers watching the last of that night's full moon. Good times.

Xx Jaz

Koh Tao we love you..

We are enamoured with Koh Tao! We found the first few days difficult, attempting to adjust to the immense heat and humidity, and also a touch of home sickness. That serves us right for inheriting amazing families and having incredible friends!

Our first few days we spent in Mae Haad, we had Thai massages and generally lazed around. Then we were drawn to Sairee village, much more vibrant and populated with restaurants literally on the beach.

Koh Tao is renowned for it's beautiful coral reefs and tropical fish, nearly everyone heads out to dive. We met a group of divers who had just finished their open water course and they had become great friends in the process. Although I was slightly terrified, being a less than average swimmer, we decided that the masses could not be wrong and enrolled in a course that begun the very next day!

Ban's diving certifies more divers than anywhere else in the world, and Koh Tao is the cheapest place to do it! With free accommodation during the course it's a sweet deal. The first two days are theory with a practical lesson in the dive pool to get you comfortable with the gear.

Day three brought the last theory session followed by the final exam. That afternoon we ventured out on the dive boat for our first open water dive. I was so nervous and anxious, fumbling around trying to remember how to put all the equipment together. But with a line of people behind us waiting to get in we just had to get over it... Decked out in full scuba gear, one hand on our weight belts and the other hand holding on to our mask and regulator we step off the boat and jump into the ocean.

Taking the first few breaths under water is the best feeling, gliding through the water like you're just another fishy! We saw clown fish (nemo!), trigger fish, banner fish, blue spotted string rays, eels, barracuda and not to mention the beautiful coral and anemones. Our highlight had to be seeing a turtle swimming around with us! It's another world down there, like God sneakretly created this under water world so differently to everything on land. So stoked on it!!

Thanks Koh Tao for one of the best experiences ever!

Love, Jaz

Rick & Jaz VLOG # 3 Koh Tao Moto Adventure

Thailand has so far indeed been an experience. With the heat and the constant battle to survive in the midst of hundreds of locals trying to sell you "taxi boat" and "bungalow" but said at a high pitch whine.  Everything is cheap like 700ml water is 10Baht(40c) and a large Chang beer 700ml is 70bt, and our best yet.. 35bt for a plate of Pad Thai.

From within the airport you could smell Thailand.. a warm, "organic" smell invades everything.. kinda like Chinese takeaway plus urine, wet dog and sweet and sour rotting fruit. The heat then hits you.. its like a wave when you leave the air conditioning comfort of the airport and step out into the city and every pore starts leaking with sweat. The average temp has been about 30-32 degrees and 90% humidity.
The showers are cold only(which is grand) and the ocean is like tepid bath water.. its nice but definitely could be cooler.. and there is coral and sea cucumbers(Rick has renamed them) everywhere so you gotta watch your step.

Whinging aside it is truly beautiful. Right now we are sitting in a beach side restaurant on Koh Tao, at Sairee Beach, checking emails etc..  The Sand is white and the water is crystal clear, they don't call it paradise island for nothing.. there's loads of fish swimming in the shallows and the people are friendly, specially if you say thanks...(khob-kun-Ka, If you are a woman.khob-kun-Krub, If you are a man.)

Yesterday we hired a motor bike and drove around the island, which was pretty sweet. You don't need a license and the roads are very rugged and that coming from Rick with his hill country farming styles..

Till next time,
Enjoy the video

Rick and Jas

We made it...!!

Hello Folks!!!
Horraaaaahhh!! We got here safely... well as safe as the taxi driver would allow! He said he knew where our hostel was.. ha Yeah right.
Had our first day in Bangkok, roaming the streets and trying to work all the train systems out. We felt like we'd achieved soooo much just when we worked the ticketing out!
Rode a tuktuk through these crazy streets, went through 6 floors of mall at MBK and bought supplies such as Thai Red Bull and Thai Nescafe.
We had 'Pork', corn and cashew at about 1am last night, which on kiwi time that was 6am after our 12 and a half hours on cattle class flights.
Booked our bus to Kho Tao down south for tomorrow which is an all nighter coach.. leaving bangkok 7pm, arriving there 5:30am.. then at 7am 1.5hrs ferry to Kho Tao Island chain, where we will spend a week to 10 days. Hopefully its a bit quiter and not so crazy!! 

Now we're off in search of some decent Pad Thai (hopefully) for dinner.

Rick and Jaz