Bye Bye from Bangkok - Day 259 (20,902 miles)

Our last stop in Cambodia was Battambang, a small town with some pretty french influenced buildings in varying states of disrepair............







A narrow gauge railway runs between villages in this area and we took a ride on the Bamboo Train. The name is a little misleading it's not like the whole thing, track and all are made of bamboo but basically we paid good money to be bumped about and bruised on a bamboo platform for 15km travelling at about 45km ph. Supposedly the locals use the train too but we think they are fed up sharing it with tourists and have probably all bought mopeds to get about!



If a train comes from the opposite direction.............



The one carrying the lesser load is dismantled and gives way!



After a month in Cambodia we headed back into Thailand



We spend a night in the Thai border town of Aranya Prathek and stumbled across a small locals' bar where the owner and his friend were performing a variety of Western and Thai pop covers. We think the guy on the left used to be in the Magic Numbers!



Surely "Plane lands on Bangkok fuel station roof narrowly missing John and Jane's Tenere" made it into the news headlines back home?

John's first haircut in 8 months, not quite a crop but a big improvement in the humidity and heat of Bangkok.

Our last couple of weeks in SE Asia wwere spent in Bangkok arranging our visas and an agent to ship the bike to Delhi, doing some shopping (not sure where the new camera accessories will go) and ................................................



some fun nights out, this is an impromptu cocktail bar that sets up each night outside the gates of a building site. Sometimes it's a case of getting up and moving a few feet to make way for a late delivery of materials! We are really going to miss SE Asia and all the great people we have met (and re-met) during our time here.



The Tenere, bound for Delhi.

Some of you may wonder just what is going on with our route, 1st we were going to India, then we told some of you we weren't and now we are again!

Lets just say we've learnt a lot on our trip so far, we've decided we don't like to rush and this has played havoc with our original schedule. We plan to be home by the end of September 2011 so what we fit in between now and then is definitely not definite (if that makes sense!)

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Cambodia - Siem Reap and Angkor - Day 241 (20,273 miles)

We arrived in Siem Reap the town closest to the ancient city of Angkor with 7 days set aside to 'do it slowly'. The number of and area covered by temples is huge and in the current warm humid weather the last thing we wanted to do was rush around.

We had also decided not to attempt to get the bike into the area known as the Angkor Archaeological Park, some people manage to do it and others are stopped by the Police. We preferred to travel around by tuk tuk in lightweight clothing and not worry about where we could leave our bike and gear.

The downside is we don't have any photo's of the bike with the Angkor backdrop.

We bought 3 day entrance passes and managed to get up for a sunrise on day 2, this photo was taken at about 5.30 am. We could claim that it was us alone on the edge of the lake sharing this magical moment but anyone who's been there will know this is a big fat fib.......................

Here are a few of the others that shared it with us!

Over the 3 days we visited 16 temples it's a magical place. Below is a very small selection of the hundreds of photos we took, there isn't a comment against each one as it's possible you would be asleep with your head on the keyboard long before you reach the end and if you're reading this at work that could be somewhat career limiting.

I wish this escalator was working!

2pm on day 1, John suffers from the onset of temple fatigue.

It was hard to resist buying even when we didn't want stuff, the kids were so happy and polite.

After some monsoon rainfall in Siem Reap the river was teeming with a particular type of small fish that the locals love to eat. Every man and his dog were out fishing.

We enjoyed Siem Reap it's a pretty little city and serves the tourists that visit Angkor well with plenty of places to eat drink and shop.

We went to a free concert that is given every Saturday by Dr Beat Richner a pretty amazing Swiss Paediatrician who runs several children's hospitals in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. 10% of the funding needed is provided by the Swiss government and a few more % by the Cambodian government but the rest is all donations. He and the hospital staff provide an amazing standard of free health care, quite inspirational.

Bye for now Jane and John xxxxxxxxxxxx

Cambodia - Kep, Koh Kong and Kompong Thom - Day 235 (20,091 miles)

After a week in Phnom Penh we headed south to the Cambodian coast.

We travelled with Els and Marijn who were also heading to the small town of Kep. Kep is pretty relaxing, not much going on (very nice), the quayside has quite a buzz during the day with many fishing boats bringing in their catches of crab and haggling going on in the market. At night the string of restaurants along the quay specialise in dishes based around (you've guessed it) crab. Unfortunately like many parts of the world demand is outstripping supply and the fishermen are landing specimens that really are too young and small. Anyway we were on an economy drive after Phnom Penh and couldn't afford it! John and Els.

Els and Marijn's friend Marcel lives in Kep and knows all the best places off the beaten track. We spent a great day riding around local villages and saw some beautiful countryside. Marcel and Marijn.

Riding towards Kiriseila pagoda, a temple surrounded by caves.

Salt is an important local crop, areas of land are flooded with sea water and as the water evaporates the rock salt is harvested. Marcel asked one of the workers doing this backbreaking work how much he was paid, the answer was $2 per day.

Although many things seem very cheap here to us it is still hard to fathom how people survive on this level of wage and it seems to be that many people don't buy very much at all. They grow and raise as much of their own food as possible and barter with others. A litre of fuel is over $1 and most families have a moped (even if it is shared between 5) so fuel must cost at least a couple of $ a week. Educating their kids (which usually means a contribution from parents to the teacher) and any healthcare (nothing is free) must be such a struggle.

Driving through a village we came across a statue of Pope John Paul II, it turns out a Catholic charity kindly built a school but not so kindly insisted all pupils convert from Buddhism to Catholicism. For some reason they currently do not have any teachers so all the kids have is a Pope shaped climbing frame.

View from a bridge on our journey from Kep to Koh Kong.

We splashed out $15 a night for this rather fancy hotel, temperatures where getting well up above 30c so aircon and the pool were a treat.

Unfortunately the nightclub next door proved to be a bit lively and from sign displayed outside it's door possibly a bit deadly!

Toilets in a mangrove swamp and yes they were plumbed in! Not sure if walls are phase 2 of the project.

We booked a day trip over to Koh Kong island, it is getting to the end of the high season here and we got lucky and only had to share this boat with a nice crew and 1 other couple.

The beach was nice, the water was warm and we enjoyed chatting to Sophie and Kelvin a french couple.

Tuk tuk repairs on our way to Sambor Prei Kuk. We gave these kids some strong mints to try, from their faces they didn't seem keen.

I love tuk tuks, if John ever fancies this as a form of long term travel I'll be there!

This group of temples is pre Ankorian so even older than Ankor Wat the temple of all temples that we will be visiting next week. There were a couple of other tourists but we had a relaxing few hours wandering round and we know next week is going to be much busier.

Me and Savani our very knowledgeable Guide.

Most Cambodian kids go to school for either the morning or afternoon and do some kind of work when not at school. These guys sell Kramas the traditional scarf that is still worn by lots of Cambodians. They sell them for $1 and will work incredibly hard to get a sale, English is taught in all schools and they can all ask What is your name? Where do you come from? and when you tell them they will name your country's Prime Minister etc and the current population figure!

Well that's it for now, be prepared for temple overload next time!

There's a few more maximum capacity photo's below.

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