Cambodia: The Same Same, But Different

So today I went to a hotel, and inquired about a room. He said it was $20 a night.

I said “Does it have a fan in the room?”

He said “What kind of fan do you want?”

I said “.........A blog fan”

He said “.... Yes.... Yes it does” :-)

Ten million BLOG FANSSSS!!
Its that time again you hungry dogs! Sink your teeth into this devilish piece of meat, of BREAKING BLOG NEEEWWWSSSS!!!!

(compose yourself)

Well... We crossed into Cambodia via the Mekong river in Vietnam. I think I wrote about this in my last blog... Anyway, we arrived in Phnom Penh and got a $1 tuk-tuk to our hostel. It was a really cool hostel actually. We stayed in a dorm, but the bunk beds were double bed width. Classy  ;-) It also had a bar at the top floor, that had really good drink and food offers. But the first thing we did in Phnom Penh, was the S21 Museum. Start on a positive note init... The S21 Museum is basically an ex-school, that was turned into an interrogation / torture prison, where 1000s of civilians died under Pol Pots reign. It was pretty damn grim. Murky walls, stained tiled floor, and surrounded in barbed wire. You could walk around the buildings looking at the torture methods, and 1000s of mug shots of the people that died there. I felt kinda numb towards it all to be honest. Couldn’t really imagine these stories being anything but fictional. Or if not fictional, in a far distant history. Not so recent... But needless to say, after that, we needed a stiff drink or two. We went back and bumped into 2 girls that we met in Vietnam, and we also got in touch with another couple we met a few days back... Whilst having dinner, the hostel supplied a free keg of beer. Basically free beer for everyone until the last glass was poured. I had about... 7? Then me and Lena (a Brummy girl) played beer pong. She was beating me pretty bad, then she decided to switch with her sober mate Becky! Then she started beating me even worse!! Then I moved on to cider, then whisky, then I saw this drink challenge thing on the wall... Which is never a good thing for me blog fans. I always accept a drinking challenge... They had a drink called “Banana Bombs” Which is a shot of tequila, and a shot of banana liquor, wedged at the top of a glass of Redbull. Once you take the tequila and drink it, the banana liquor drops into the Redbull, and you wash down the tequila with the banana Redbull mix. Lethal... The “challenge” was to win points for your country. I think England was 4^th at this point. Behind USA, France, and Cambodia. But we represented that night ;-) Got us 3^rd, and closer to France... Probably would of got further, but after a couple more free shots, and jager bombs, shit hit the fan, blog fans... The next thing I remember was being on the toilet floor, asleep, with Cat saying “Rob, we’re going to a club. Are you going to be OK?” I chundered EVERYWHAA blog fans!! Was in a right mess... Apparently Cat and a couple others got a tuk-tuk to a club, and stayed out for another couple hours. When she got back, I STILL hadn’t made it to bed! I got woken up in the corridor by some backpacker trying to navigate her wheely suitcase around me :-) Then i crawled my sorry arse into bed...

After that heavy night, we all woke up hungover, with just a couple hours sleep, and ready to get a tuk-tuk to the Killing Fields... Bit of a juxtaposition I know... As the name might suggest, the Killing Fields isn’t much of a happy place either. Its a spot where men, women, and children were bought to be killed once the Khmer Rouge where done with them at S21. Not just political opponents, but anyone Vietnamese, Chinese, from a city, pale skinned, educated.... And once they were killed, the wives and babies had to be killed to prevent revenge attacks... Close to a third of the population were killed by the Khmer Rouge, and this was just one of about 20,000 mass graves around the country... You went around with an audio headset, listening to what happened. There was a “killing tree”, which babies were killed against... A “magic tree”, which had big speakers playing eerie music to drown out the screams. And lots and lots of bones and skulls... Cat was moved to tears by it all. But she wasn’t the only one there that was...

We had a quiet night in that night... Needed it... Was hanging balls, and we caught an early bus to Kampot with Lena. Kampot was a nice place. Super chilled. We stayed at a hostel, that had a bar hoovering over a river. There was a floating man-made island with hammocks, rope swing, kayaks... Was proper hippy. I had a bit of a troublesome 24hrs there though blog fans... We went out for dinner at a local little hut one night. As I was talking, looked down at my feet during conversation, and I spotted a MASSIVE black scorpion, literally a inch away from my moving, bare foot. A guy that worked there jumped up like a maniac, beat it to death, then removed its tail... “This is very bad!”. So im guessing I was kinda lucky... We went back to the same place in the morning to rent motorbikes for a trip up to a place called Bokor Hills. I went for a little practice run as it was manual... all fine, so I drove it back to wait for the girls. As I flicked down the kick-stand, I let go of the bike... and it fell... Right in front of the owners, and few customers. The mirror smashed into a hundred pieces in the middle of the road, and I looked like a right knob. Bit embarrassing... So that wasn’t a good start. We took the one mirrored bike up this hill anyway. Bokor is now known for its spooky eerie atmosphere. It used to have a casino, church, hotel, etc when the French were in power here. Now they’re all abandoned, and super ghoulish... The fact that its so high up in the clouds, that it forms a constant misty, haunted appearance to the area, only adds to the atmosphere even more. Anyway, my troubles weren’t over yet blog fans... During that excursion, Cat and I nearly got attacked by a MASSIVE MONKEY on the bike whilst we were driving! It was like we were in a scene from the movie Silent Hill, mixed with The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes... Madness... And ALSO, after that I crashed our bike :-p Kinda anyway... We stopped on a gravely path to ask for directions, and when I drove off, the wheels kinda skidded over the rocks, and with mine and Cats weight on it, we dropped like a sack of shit :-) Classic... We both popped up with the two other girls going “OMG, are you OK?” But we were just really worried about how damaged the bike was lol. Thats a campervan, car, AND a bike ive damaged on our trip now! Champion! The bike had a bent foot rest, that we managed to bend into place just enough for the people not to notice when we returned it :-) Me and Cat just had a few scratches and bruises ;-)

We said bye to the two girls we were with, and headed down to Sihanoukville next. Dont ask me how to pronounce it blog fans. Its a bastard of a name... Its a town on the south coast, which most people visit prior to heading off to the islands close to it. And in this case, we are “most people”. To be honest, its low season in this part of the world right now, and the atmosphere was DEAD. We checked in to a hostel that seemed to be the only one with people in, and headed out to the deserted restaurants for dinner. We stumbled across a place called “Happy Pizza”. They sold Happy pizzas, Happy shakes, and Happy cigarettes... I hope I don’t have to spell out what I mean by “Happy” blog fans... The pizza was really nice! Cat had the shake that wasn’t bad either. But to be honest, smoking was the only thing that seemed to make me “happy” in any way. The following day we had a beach day. Was really nice until it got to the evening, when it PISSED DOWN! THIS is why its low season blog fans... I frantically tried to drive us home to shelter, and got absolutely drenched! Was probably a bit dodgy driving a scooter in those conditions, but still, it was either that or stand in a monsoon for 3hrs...

We left for the islands next. We paid for a ticket that meant we could snorkel on the way to the first island, then get dropped off for as long as you want, then get a boat to the second island, then back to the mainland. As we boarded, we noticed how choppy the sea was. The waves were like a remake of the Perfect Storm, and it became obvious survival was more important that snorkelling. So we went straight to the first island and got off there... I said to the guy “I think we might stay here one night, when do we get the boat tomorrow?”

“12:30 here”

“Everyday?”

“Yes”

“So here, 12:30pm, tomorrow afternoon?”

“Yes...”

You can see where this is going blog fans. The boat left again, taking every other tourist away, except me and Cat... Who checked in to a little seaside hut :-) It was really nice. There was no people, there was only electricity between 6pm to 11pm, and it was pretty damn chilled... We had half a day of sun, then half a day of getting caught in torrential rain on a jungle trek. But we decided to leave the next day as we planned. We went to the accommodation guy and said “Can we pay now? We are getting the boat today”

“No boat today”

“Pardon?”

“No boat...”

Casual as that blog fans. Basically as no one was booking a boat to this deserted island during monsoon season, the boat had no reason to come to pick us up... We didn’t mind so much, as it was pretty sweet there. The only few negatives was, I wasn’t getting much sleep because of the heat with no fan during the night. We were also being bitten to shit by mozzies, our bathroom was infested by ants, and we had the odd rat visiting our room now n then. But still, worse places to be stuck... We thought we’ll just get the boat the next day, hoping some tourists would be CRAZY enough to come here like we did... We tried ordering lunch as we were staying – no bread, no beef, no this, no that... Rations were not being shipped over either blog fans... We basically had the choice of fish, fried rice, and mango... Which suited us well enough. Next morning... “No boat”... lol Are you f***ing KIDDING ME blog fans!? The fact that we ran out of things to do, and the weather was bad, and the food was running out, didn’t really bother me. I just didn’t want another night in the cabin sweating my mozzie bitten balls off, and getting 3hrs sleep a night... We managed to book a “fast” boat with a different company, that would take us from this island to the next. So that was something... Just meant that was now a snorkelling trip, AND a boat transfer we paid for but didn’t get. But f*** it, we’re moving on. The next island was a lot more busier. Loads of hostels, backpackers, places to eat... Was actually happy about that, considering what we just came from... This island (Koh Rong) had more of a reputation for a party island. So we were just planning on staying the one night, partying, and getting off... We met two Cambodian guys, partied with them, had a good night, then got up to catch our boat the next morning... BUT GUESS WHAT BLOG FANS? It didn’t come!! :-D  SO, we had to book ANOTHER fast boat back to the mainland. So that was a snorkel trip, and TWO island transfers they scammed us out of. Bastards. But we were getting off the beaches, onto mainland, and moving on... We got back to Sihanoukville where we were greeted by annoying tuk-tuk drivers trying to grab our arms... “My friend, my friend! Come! Come!” Theyre starting to get on my tits... “Its $12, because its 15km”. “NO, its $6 and 4km!” Theyre so full of bullshit... After telling him what we were willing to pay, and convincing him we didn’t need to go and book our next bus with his friend because its “really busy and almost full” (in low season, such bullshit), he took us to our hostel... On the way he hit a really big pothole. That made me fly up so high, I smacked my head on the metal roof, CRACKING MY SHADES that were resting on the top of my head! :-D LOL! ...Bloody tuk-tuk drivers....

After all that excitement, we had a whole day travelling from Sihanoukville to Battambag. We had to switch bus at Phnom Penh, where we saw a load of tourists waiting for the bus too. It felt good though, because as the next two buses pulled up, all the tourists got on the bus to Siem Reap, and we jumped on the bus to Battambang full of old local women, and farmers... We so culture ;-) The bus journey itself was pretty cool actually. We got to pass through the type of landscapes he hadn’t really seen in Cambodia yet. Saw a lot of village kids cycling to school, men transporting bamboo on the back of their motorbikes, farmers in rice paddies, monks, etc... They all looked poor, but at the same time, happy. Always smiling and waving... Made me feel a lot sadder that Battambang was gonna be our penultimate stop. Felt we should of spent more time in “Real Cambodia”. But we had to keep moving on blog fans... Battambang was really nice, and really cheap. We paid $4 for the two of us in a private room with en suit toilet. Thats crazy... On the first day we paid a tuk-tuk driver to take us around the temples in the countryside. We then finished the day by visiting a circus, with youngsters performing acrobats and stuff. They were really good. Not professional, but the school was run off donations for disadvantage kids to learn these skills. So it was a positive thing blog fans... We also did a cooking class in Battambang. Watch out Jamie Oliver ;-) We knocked up some spring rolls, amok curry, beef lok lak, and dessert... Our chef guy told us how one of his students learnt his ways of cooking, stole his recipe, opened his own shop LITERALLY NEXT DOOR, and then TRIED TO KILL HIM! WTF lol... Maybe he should consider making a documentary or something... Anyway, we ate our delicious cooking, and then had a few drinks and a game of pool with the guys we met in the class. After 3 nights in Battambang we had 2 choices to get to Siem Reap. Bus or Boat... The bus was a quarter the price, and twice the speed... But the boat was a lot more scenic. We were a bit worried about the dodgy weather, but like I said blog fans, we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t have longer in Cambodia... so we used the boat trip as something to make up for it. We found out that the guys from the cooking class were coming too, so we all set off together. We passed floating markets, floating villages, floating shops, floating schools... And the weather actually stayed really good throughout... We thought it was all going fine and dandy, until we were about 2hrs away from Siem Reap. We got caught up in loads of jungle like weeds in the river. It didn’t seem too bad at first, but then the boat came to a standstill... Everyone onboard had to pull out all these weeds around the boat, like we were farming vegetables or something... We all cheered when we got floating off, then 30mins after that... the boat stopped AGAIN. Everyone looked at each other a bit confused. Then we realised we were actually stuck in sand. The river was too low, and we weren’t floating no more. We spent an extra 2 or 3 hrs, pushing the boat along until we were back into deeper waters. All the boys on the boat helped, including me. I said to Cat “You should take a photo to remember this moment”. But she was too busy talking... Psst! Typical...

SOOO!!

“Knock, knock...”

“Who’s there?”

“Angkor W.......”

“Angkor What!??”

EXACTLY BLOG FANS!!

We were in Siem Reap! And if you didn’t get my joke just there, Siem Reap is mostly visited for the temples surrounding the town... Most famously, Angkor Watt... We purchased a 3 day pass to the temples, and hired a tuk-tuk each day to take us around. Every time we went with the Canadian girl, and Israeli guy we met at cooking class... It was awesome... We will never look at a temple in the same way again now though. On the first day, we did the largest route around. We visited Bayon, which is a temple with 260 giant faces carved all around it. It was pretty sick... The 2^nd day highlight was Ta Prohm. Which is the temple used as the setting for the Tomb Raider movie. The thing that made it unique was all the trees twisting around it, and growing over, and on top of the temple itself. Then on the last day, we saved the money-shot for last... The Angkor Watt sunrise... We woke up at 4am to get there on time. Was definitely worth it though. The temple itself wasn’t actually the best. But the sun rises behind it in the mornings, and the temple reflects in the moat below. Creating a view that would make any Instagrammer sexually aroused :-)

As usual, not all things ran as smoothly as seemed. My first day in Siem Reap, im pretty sure I got a mild case of food poisoning. We were all out having dinner, and a few quiet drinks... Then all of a sudden, It felt like a horse kicked me in the gut... I knew I was in trouble, so I grabbed the keys off Cat and powerwalked home... Running would of been a massive risk, blog fans... Woke up several times that night to s*** my guts out... It’s a favourite pastime of mine now blog fans... Seems to be all im doing in Asia... I came pretty close to puking too. Sober puking is never good... But it only came out of the backend fortunately... Day 2, after not eating for 24hrs, I felt I might of had mild sunstroke. Had massive headaches, and didn’t go out that night... Then day 3, my sinusitis kicked in. F***ing perfect init... I would of liked to of made the most of our hostel here. We had 5aside on sand, a cool pool bar, and stuff. But I was never really up for it... Also really wanted to make the most of Siem Reap nightlife, but I didn’t really. I managed to force myself out for the 4^th night though. The girl and guy we were hanging with didn’t really wanna drink too much, but me and Cat got tipsy, and went to a couple bars. So considering all of that, I still had a really good time here...

I say “HERE”, because im writing this on my bed, in Siem Reap on our LAST NIGHT here. And LAST NIGHT IN CAMBODIAAAA :-0 Tomorrow im off to Bang Cock... Sorry, I mean Bangkok ;-) To start our next adventure in THAILAND! We’re probably only gonna be there for two weeks in the north. Then we are planning to go Laos for a bit, then back into Thailand to hit the southern areas. That’s where im planning to spend my birthday blog fans ;-) So put that in your diary, and meet us there!! :-D

Think thats it for now! Goodbye Cambodia unfortunately :-( For now at least... Remember to check the YouTube page for up dated videos, if you’re interested. Other than that, all you can do is wait, and keep your shorts TIIIIGHT for the next, amazing, exotic, RobCat Travel, Breaking, Blog, Neeeeewwwwsssss!!

Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooopaaaaaonanippledust!!

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