good mornign Vietnam!!!

After enduring a painful bus journey in which Dan had to put up with some old Cambodians bum stuck right in his face the whole way and i had taken some advice from Ed to take some tablets to stop a vomiting spell i had, which made me so fidgety and restless that there was not a hope in hell of falling to sleep and my legs were in a constant twitch. We made it to Siam reap 7 hours later, all a little flustered but ready to see some temples! we found a really good hotel with two double beds, an on suit and a TV for only $6 so that was.......$3 per couple (bargain!) i think we spent our first night watching tele and laughing at rubbish American film called "direct contact?" i don't recommend it!

The next morning it was up and out early for some serious temple tours! angkor wat is so amazing it looks like old Aztec ruins but about 30 times the size! We went to big temples, little temples, 200 year old temples, and 600 year old temples, temples with trees growing from them.......... and so on. By the end we were templed out and ready for some beers! The town in Siam reap is great! and the beer only cost 13p so we had lots to compensate. At about 1 o'clock we found ourselves boogying in some seedy nightclub surrounded by Cambodians watching and mimicking our stupid dancing to the YMCA and other tasteful tunes including the spice girls etc.......

We spent the next day feeling sorry for ourselves hung over drinking coffee and mooching round markets, i bought the most adorable antique wooden elephant puppet which i am currently trying my hardest not to break in my tightly compact back pack. Then we said our good byes to Claire and Ed who had decided to stay for a week or so to do some volunteer work. We, on the other hand were off to Vietnam!!!

We....(i) decided it was a good plan to go by public transport to the nearest border crossing rather then the usual tourist route going back through Phnom Penn on a 12 hour long bus. Our plan was flawless until we got to the crossing and it became obvious that they had never dealt with a foreign passport and kept us waiting for ages till they figured it out! Then when on the other side there were no busses only one lonely man offering us a ride to the nearest town for $25!!!! We had no choice as this was all there was apart from walking. When at the bus station it took 6 changes of busses (where nobody spoke a word of English and we only knew 2 words hello and thank you) finally we made it to Saigon which was buzzing with thousands of motor bikes... literally coating the streets and the pavements. Luckily we got off the bus in the right place despite being completely oblivious and overwhelmed by it all. We found a guest house and explored the streets.

Saigon is a great place (really busy) but there is a good atmosphere about it and we were able to spend hours window shopping, eating weird and wonderful foods and wondering around markets and museums. after a couple of days we booked an open ticket where you basically have a month to get up to Hanoi with as many stops and as much time as you like, our first stop was nha trang which is nice but it has been rainy and cloudy since we got here and with it being a beach side city there isn't much to do. Tonight we leave for Hoian then Hue then Hanoi and Haylong bay before leaving for Singapore on the 27th. 

change of plan

So our plan was to sit back, relax and pamper in the south of Thailand for a month before finding jobs and working our socks off in oz.

We made a snap decision and change of plan to go to Cambodia and Vietnam instead.....what can i say we love this traveling millarky! so here we are after a immense 24 + hour straight journey on a bus-boat-bus from KO Tao all the way to Sihnoukeville in Cambodia! its really authentically Asian here which is a big change from the commercial south Thailand where you have anything and everything ready at your hotel.

me Dan ed and Claire were staying in dirt cheap guest house jobbies again, just the way i like it! after a couple of a booze ups and a visit to a crazy snake farm, we decided to push on to Rabbit island.

It was another short 6 hour bus to the ferry (a little wooden boat with a motorbike engine) when we reached our destination it was like heaven! nothing but jungle, sand and a couple of bamboo huts! we heard that you had to catch and cook your own food. so we were pleasantly surprised when we saw a food hut which served fresh crab and fish. the island was so perfect, so chilled and best of all nearly deserted! we swam around for a while and a big school group made there way over by boat and started swimming with us. The children were between 6-12 and they were so much fun! we were all playing games, splashing around, taking under water photos and generally looking after these poor kids for the afternoon. I really want to do some volunteer work even more now as this was a little taster of how fun and enthusiastic these kids are!

In the evening we sat round, ate whole crab and drank 2 bottles of rum between us! Dan disappeared off to the sea for 5 mins then came back with something glowing on his hand....... it was glowing plankton which is really rare and only happens at certain times of month when the weather is just right! the 4 of us ran down to the sea and the waves were glowing. I remembered the scene off the beach and decided to go for a swim! it was the most beautiful thing i have ever seen in my entire life!!! it was like the water was alive! every time you move the twinkling lights shine... we all swam around for hours trying different things like standing still then splashing as much as you can, or swimming underwater and seeing if you could track the movements. the next morning we all felt like it was a dream.... we dint want to leave but phenom penh was beckoning!

this must be underwater love...

After the Christmas drinks, followed by a day of hangover fun on boxing day, we had the following day to get acquainted with scuba diving! We met our group of Linda, Ally, Sweaty (Kris) and Ted, and our well sound instructor called Guy, had a rather tedious afternoon of watching very cheesy diving videos, a bit of dive theory, and getting to know what we would be expecting. This was followed by a could of drinks with our team, then a fairly early night considering we had to be back up at 8 for more video watching and our exam!

We sat through the cheesy videos again, did some last minute revision, and sat the exam. Roz did a sterling job with 88% but i was teachers pet with 100%!! Get in! After this we got to go diving for the first time! Even if it was in a swimming pool... We practiced assembling equipment, breathing underwater, mask clearing, and regulator removal and finding. It is amazing how hungry this can make you, so we heading down the road to a Korean barbecue, which basically consists of all you can eat meat and noodles, and a mini barbie on the table in front of you and you just keep on cooking as much as you want! It was genius!! So with a belly full of meat we rolled down the hill and had another early night, as next day we had to be up a 7am!!

Day 3 of scuba training was into the sea! So after a quick briefing we got on the boat and headed for our first dive site, called twin peaks. We were heading down to 12m today and going through more practicing of skills underwater including buoyancy control, mask clearing, fin pivots and equalizing the pressure in our ears. After that we went for a quick swim around the coral, saw loads of fish and even a moray eel! Another dive in the afternoon was much the same, but more swimming and fish spotting! Same same again in the evening with food and sleep!!

The final day of diving was just a half day, with 2 more dives but this time down to 18m... it's weird but it feels a lot deeper than that when you look up and see people way up over head swimming above you! We had a camera man with us today so he would film us playing around underwater, practicing our final manouvers and swimming with fish! We saw blue spotted stingray, boxfish, barracuda and loads of others! That night we watched our video and was going to buy one but for 50 quid we could afford, we decided to buy one between the group and copy it!! So that was it, we are now qualified divers!!

The next day was new years, so we had a well deserved lie in, met up with Clare and Ed who we met in Chiang Mae, and headed over to Koh pha ngan for the full moon party!! The island was absolutely heaving with partiers, but after fighting our way through the crowds we bought the obligatory glow paint and started adorning our faces! You can see the photos we took on flickr (link from this page top left) and you'll see how messy we got! After earning a couple of beers painting randoms, we headed to the beach for the carnage, and managed to avoid the special buckets (laced with magic mushrooms!!) and danced like loons until the countdown began! Fireworks were explodign everywhere and it really was a sight to behold! We carried on partying for a couple more hours then somehow managed to find a quiet spot for a quick nap, before the ferry took us back to Koh Tao. And rest...! After a shower of course!

After new years, more beaching, and we have now decided to not bother with the rest of the Thai islands, cus Koh Tao was so amazing and have opted to head back north and spent our next month through Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam!! And so right now we are waiting for our night boat back to the mainland and into another adventure!!