The blog update will be in 3 parts....so enjoy the first sitting :)
This trip of a lifetime has been so much more than I ever expected. And, ironically, it's been the least westernised places that have astounded me with their customer service and general loveliness.
THAILAND & VIETNAM
My first week was spent in glorious Thailand. My beautiful friend Tori came with me and we spent the first day together in Bangkok. We got slightly lost due to a rogue tuktuk driver with no idea where to go and what to do....and this thai woman passed by us, stepped back and asked if we needed help. She told us the best places to go, got us a tuk tuk, negotiated a great price and advised us about costs of trips etc, and expected no money in return. Tor and i couldn't believe our luck! So, off we went - and had an awesome day. Although we realised by 2pm we hadn't eaten a thing, so after nearly passing out on the road, we ended up on the Koh San road, drinking 'Chang' beer and eating superb food - in, ironically, in the first ever bar I went to, back in 1998 called 'lucky beer'.
We travelled to an amazing resort called 'cha-am' and spent a week in paradise. We only left the hotel once, to go to the next town called 'hua hin' for an afternoon. And neither of us had ever felt so exposed, so uncomfortable or so unsafe. Needless to say, we were back on the bus as soon as we could! Only benefit of being in that town was finding a 'boots the chemist' shop!!! Its the little things....
Tori and I parted company and I flew onto Vietnam. I was only staying two nights, as I was due to meet my 'trek' people on the Saturday night. On the Friday, I got there mid afternoon but, initially, I just didn't like the vibe of Ho Chi Minh city...not sure why, just didn't. Met up with my mate Dave, from home, on the Saturday morning and I had been speaking to a 'cyclo' driver who said he'd do a good deal for the day, for $15. Sounds good, thought Dave and I. So we got cycled around Ho Chi Minh for about 4 hours....which was good fun, although the roads are chaos! No rhyme or reason to the driving and the place is overrun with scooters! Something like 6 million scooters in the city alone. Mental. Got to the 'war memorial' museum, which was amazing. There was a lot of information that I never really knew about the Vietnam war, and some of the pictures I saw had me in tears. Truly terrifying.
Ended our day with the cyclo driver scamming us out of a LOT of money....which gutted me as I'd hoped that Vietnam wouldn't live up to my initial dread. But it did. However, we met up with the 'Cambodia Trekkers' that evening, and went out for dinner.....little did I realise at that point that these 14 other people would end up sharing the most amazing holiday with me...and all keeping me massively entertained with their random ways and personalities.
CAMBODIA
We arrived in Phenom Pheng after an epic 8 hour coach trip on a public bus, which had air con and played the Cambodian equivalent of 'one direction' on repeat. Thank god for Ipads! We spent the next two days in this wonderfully colourful and vibrant city, walking around and tasting the local delicacies (well, jeremy & gayle did!). We got taken to S21, the Major prison where the Khumer Rouge kept most prisoners before they were taken to the 'Killing Fields'. It was a blistering hot day and walking around this eerie prison site, seeing the cells, the torture chambers and tools was a very sobering experience. It was so quiet, even though we were one road back from a major street and we barely spoke to each other - just drinking in the emotion of the place. Imagining what those people had to endure, just because one man decided he was better than everyone else. Pol Pot killed over 2 million cambodians, mostly the elderly and educated, as he wanted a new breed of citizens who would do whatever he said and wouldn't challenge his decisions. We met an actual survivor, who was amazing - he spoke through a translator and when he described his torture, you could see everyone was nearly in tears.
We moved onto the Killing Fields. Imagine being in a bus, being told that you are on your way to a new village, for a brand new start. You arrive and, whilst being chained to the other prisoners, you hear soft music blaring out of the speakers. Nirvana, right? Wrong. They played the music so loud so that the new arrivals couldn't hear the executions taking place in the fields. Here, they murdered women, children and even babies. I've never been anywhere so affecting in my whole life. The 16 of us walked around in a trance, not quite believing that this place and this horrendous genocide could actually happen, not only in our lifetime, but up until 1978.
Once we returned to the bus and travelled to our 'homestay', we all barely spoke. I don't think any of us could quite comprehend what we had just seen. However, the homestay blew away the negative, sad thoughts and bought us all back into the present. We had an amazing meal and a troupe of local children put on a wonderful show for us. We then all split into groups and slept under a mosquito net in a small hut on stilts, literally in the jungle. I shared a mattress with Diana, with Tess, Luke and David in the same room. And then the giggles got Diana and I. We laughed like drains over the silliest things for hours.....proper belly laughing. Then the sounds of the jungle kicked in and it was worse that sleeping next to the M25! The noise was deafening....needless to say, we got about 2 hours sleep.
The next day we did a small trek to the waterfalls (it nearly killed us all, treking over boulders in our flip fllops) and then we travelled to a beach resort called Sihanoukville. We stayed here for three days - having pedicures and threading parts of our bodies on the beach, eating fresh seafood (well, some people may not have called it fresh after the food poisioning they got!), took a boat trip to an amazing island called Bamboo Island, snorkeling in the crystal blue water, fishing off the side of the boat with a length of fishing wire and.....well, that was it really, just the wire.
Went went to 'Spider Town', where our guide Sareth had teased me mercilessly about making sure I had tight trousers on so that the spiders didn't crawl up my legs! I was nearly hyperventilating, much to everyone else's delight. However, it was all a joke and its known for it's deep fried trantulas, which a few people tried eating (lunatics). Cambodians eat insects as a good source of protein as when they worked in the fields under the Pol Pot regime, it was all they could find to eat. Eat them or die. Simple really.
We moved onto Siem Riep, to visit the major temple of Angkor Wat. It was breathtaking. Absolutely stunning. Definitely a 'tick' off the bucket list. We had a few days in Siem Riep and it was amazing - strolling round the night markets, a night out in a 'hip hop' club, a boat trip to probably the worst place in the world ('one dollah') and then finishing off in a hammock bar, listening to Michael Bolton screaming out about how is he supposed to live without me....
We finished up back in Bangkok - one more night with the whole crew together and what did we decide to do? Go to a 'Ping pong' show......well, all I'll say about that is its a view I'll never forget - and I never realised Roberto was so good with a Ping Pong bat!
A few of us stayed in Bangkok a few more days, but one by one the numbers dwindled as everyone said goodbye. I loved the fact that every other holiday I've had, I've made a conscious effort of deciding who to go away with....and then, purely by fate, 15 of the funniest, bravest, strongest people get thrown together to see some life changing sights. I'll never look at immodium the same again and I know that I am happy to see the back of the 'bug spray' as I went through bucket loads of the stuff.......but, the memories I will always have. And I thank the Cambodian Trekkers (and tori) for a holiday of a lifetime:
Dave
Luke & Dave
Diana
Luana & Roberto
TJ & Callum
Jeremy
Gayle
Hannah
Jo
Anna
Jackie
Tess
YOU ROCK!!!! xxxxxxxxx
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