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\n\nHappy Valentine's Day!\n\n
\n\nWe have finally left the beach and are in our second country,\nCambodia.\n\n
\n\nTo listen to the podcast click here!\n\n
\n\n9th Feb\n\nAfter waking up relatively late due to a long night of celebrations\nfor Casey\u2019s birthday, we had decided to stay in Koh Samet for two more nights.\nWe found out that our current room has been previously booked, so we had to\nfind some new accommodation. We walked around for about an hour in the rain\ntrying to find a hotel, until we eventually found one just around the corner.\nFortunately for us, the hotel was much nicer then the first and at the same\nprice of 500 baht, or approximately A$16 for us both, was a steal. We\ninevitably spent the day relaxing by the beach reading, before Casey enjoyed a\nrun on the beach. The day was then finished off by having dinner with some\nfriends we\u2019d made the day before, by the beach of course.
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\n\n10th Feb\n\nAs our final day on Koh Samet, we decided to make it count with some\nserious beach work. I, unfortunately for me, was roomridden due to a very mild\nbout of the runs, the first victim of what I\u2019m sure will inevitably reoccur\nduring our trip. Luckily that passed within a few hours and I was able to join\nCasey on the beach where he had accrued additional sunburn whilst reading his\nbook and taking photos as you have probably seen in the tabs above (if not,\ncheck them out!). We enjoyed a bit of a workout session on the beach before a\nlight run and enjoyed our final night by having another dinner on the beach at\na place we\u2019d frequented every night bar one.\n\n
\n\n11th Feb\n\nWe were keen to go to Cambodia, and utilising the liberated Lonely\nPlanet guide we had an extremely rough idea about how we intended to get there.\nWe got off the island much later the expected and luckily were ushered to a\nminivan company, which did visa runs to Cambodia. They suggested we headed to\nthe city Pailin, just across the border and then make our way to Battambang. We\nhad no idea where Pailin was as it was not listed in the lonely planet, so we\nspent the next few hours on a bus that dropped us in a Thai city just near the\nborder that we still have no real idea about. After waiting at an outdoor\nrestaurant for an hour, we were both forced to learn our first real words in\nThai, the words for \u201cpublic toilet\u201d. This was mainly due to Casey\u2019s failed\nattempt of a hand rubbing gesture, which made a lady gesture towards a tap\u2026..\nWe caught another minivan to the Cambodian-Thai border, which was typical of a\nThai town, happy people, colourful, graveled roads and buildings that I still\nwould have considered pretty rudimentary, until we crossed the border and saw\nthe ultimate contrast. \n\n
\n\nThe border crossing was relatively painless, but as we crossed, we\nwere hounded by men pulling up on motorbikes for lifts and taxi rides on the\nnow dirt road. We ended up acquiring the help of an English speaking tourist\nadvisor (who obviously would get commission out of any sale he assisted in) we\nreluctantly paid for a taxi to Battambang as the suggested alternative was to\nstay in a hotel that looked like it would be robbed the second we fell asleep.\nThe roads we travelled down were mostly ungraded as we avoided potholes after\npothole as we passed houses that were now made of wood and straw in the most\npart, we could visually see the difference between Thailand and Cambodia, and\nthe harsh history of the country really did start to become highly evident. The\ntaxi driver was in fact one of the men that had been stalking us down the\nstreet earlier, yet through his limited English, we could tell that he was\nactually a really nice guy as he stopped off at picturesque locations so we\ncould take photos. After working out the debacle of paying the driver in Thai\nBaht and American dollars, which we have now learnt is interchangeable with\nCambodian currency, the Riel (1 to approx. 4000), we found a nice hotel.\nBattambang was obviously quite a touristy town, but it was a nice place to\nstart in Cambodia.
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\n\n\n\n\n\n12th Feb\n\nThe night before we had organised a Tuk Tuk with three other people\nto go around and see the local sights of Battambang for the day. We first\nventured to the Bamboo train, which is just a rectangle formed by pieces of\nbamboo to utilise abandoned French train tracks. This was great to get a few\npictures of the Cambodian countryside. We then went to a very old yet beautiful\ntemple that was reached via a rather steep set of stairs at Phnom Banan. We\nthen went to the only winery in Cambodia and had a wine tasting.  There is a reason there is only a single\nwinery in Cambodia. I have a feeling we were drinking gasoline infused with\ngrape juice\u2026. Our final and most confronting destination so far was to a set of\ntemples; bat infested caves and \u201cThe Killing Caves\u201d at Phnom Sampeau. Visiting\nthe latter definitely put things into perspective for us, as we learnt about\nthe bloody atrocities committed by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge during their relatively\nrecent reign. This did not completely hinder the enjoyment of seeing the\ntemples in the area, visiting a monastery where monks were living and\naccidently disturbing numerous classes of students in a school as they all\nwanted to wave and say hello as we passed. We then watched a consistent stream\nof bats leave their cave for roughly 20 minutes. It was truly incredible to see\nthem uniformly weave into the distance and even more interesting to watch from\na platform next to the head of a 30 metre Buddha being carved into a cliff\nface. We then went back to town and enjoyed a traditional Cambodian dinner with\nour friends from the Tuk Tuk.
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\n\n\n\n\n\n13th Feb\n\nWe decided to set out towards Siem Reap, which is the town that is within\nreach of Ankor Wat. We boarded a relatively small boat that uncomfortably took\nroughly 9 hours to reach Siem Reap port, passing by floating villages and the\nfriendliest people, always waving and smiling. We then caught a Tuk Tuk into\ntown finding out that most accommodation was full at this point, spending an\nhour with our packs trying to find a place to stay. We had to break the\naccommodation budget for the first night, yet we had a pretty nice air\nconditioned room. We ventured out into Siem Reap to discover how expectedly\ntouristy it really was. There\u2019s a street called \u201cPub street\u201d, enough said. We\nvisited the night markets, which is really just stall after stall of relatively\nsimilar merchandise such as the Khmer scarf.
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\n\n14th Feb \u2013 Valentine\u2019s Day!\n\nThat brings us to today, a day we have decided to relax and try to\nrecover from the sunburn and peeling that has been inflicted on us whilst on\nKoh Samet and the boat ride from Battambang yesterday. We had a nice scrambled\negg breakfast with the most amazing bread either of us was expecting in Asia\n(probably due to the French influence on Cambodia). We are preparing our next\nfew nights here and our trip to Ankor Wat and the surrounding temples, which is\none of the main reasons we really decided to come to South East Asia, hopefully\nit\u2019ll live up to the hype. Unfortunately for the day, we are each other\u2019s\nValentines....\n\n
\n\nWe are loving the people we are meeting and the unexpected and\ndifferent experiences we are already having. We can\u2019t believe it\u2019s only been 9\ndays. Hopefully it keeps up and you\u2019ll keep reading about our adventures. Hope\nall is well back home, we both send our love.\n\n
\n\nMake sure you check out the photos on the Cambodia page and\nadd your e-mail address to the subscription box on the left to keep updated.\n\n
\nKeep posted.\n