Other temple shots...

We have loads, but here are just a few.

Angkor Wat

We have loads of shots of Angkor Wat - it really was an amazing site...apparently the largest religious site in the world. When we got up at 5am to see it at sun rise it appeared that most of the world did too - the shot of people taking pictures here was just one of dozens of view points that people were assembled at by 5:30am!

I've put a shot in of me given the comments...

The road trip to Siem Reap

Now that I have found a machine that allows the use of CDs, here's a few pics from the start of our travelling in Cambodia...

From the Thai border to Siem Reap was a 3.5 hour journey in a car that basically went as quick as possible and the driver just pressed the horn as necessary to get everyone out of his way. We reckon the bus would have taken about 3 times that given the difficult roads....I can't quite explain what the road was like, but imagine a farm road that only tractors go down...or for those of you who read this who have been on Thames Tour with me, imagine turning left out of the King William in Hailey and going down that road if you ever have.

We saw loads of amazing sights but given the bumpiness of the road it was near impossible to take photos...Michelle did manage to get this one though as we passed a bike with lots of live piglets on the back of it...

Phuket

Just thought I'd put this shot looking out from one of the beaches in Phuket up, to make you all jealous!

Battambang pics

We found two trustworthy motorbike riders that took us around for our half day in Battambang. They took us to the Bamboo train which is where a motorbike pushes a bamboo trolley which passengers sit on, up and down an old railway line. I say railway line but I'm not sure there was ever a railway on it...just a route down which trolleys could be pushed relatively easily with a big stick.

The problem with this mode of transport is that when someone comes the other way you're in trouble. The bamboo train with the least weight on it has to be lifted of the railway allowing the others to pass, and then put back on again to continue!

Should anyone reading this be going to Siem Reap or Battambang then give us a shout as our guides/drivers were keen for us to pass on their details...I even have an email address to pass on for Tee in Battambang if you would like a driver ready and waiting for you when you arrive...

The image of Michelle putting a hair clip in a girl's hair is from the start of the bamboo train - the kids there were all very sweet but in true Cambodian style wanted either to sell us something or just put their hands out for food or money. This little girl wanted nothing more than Michelle to make her hair look nice...

A few pics

Partly because some of the pics are on CD now and this place doesn't let me use a CD drive, and partly because my camera is broken for the moment (the display has gone), I'm not going to put up many of the pics, but here are a few from Cambodia.

One of the things we liked in Cambodia was how pyjamas are thought of as outdoors atire - most of the women seemed to wear pajamas!

The shot of a guy is our tuk tuk driver in Siem Reap, Hinda, who one day got up before 5am for us and then stayed sriving us around til 6pm, then worked as a waiter at our guest house restaurant!

The shots on the river are the boat trip from Siem Reap to Battambang...all the kids wanted to say hello!

Bali

After a night sleeping in Hong Kong airport we made it to Bali and are now safely in a nice hotel with a good pool and fee buffet breakfast for 7 pounds a night. Only issue was that we found a cockroach which left Michelle standing on the bed until I killed it, and leading her to wake up and do the same again in the night when she thought she saw another one!!

I've seen the cricket and the rugby. I liked this comment on the web about how to get Ponting out: "Ponting's not a great skipper but he is a brilliant batter and so we need a plan for him. My suggestion is put three sub fielders in the covers and bowl underarm spinners until he gets cross."

We should have played Panesar - after Flintoff he's the next most likely to get wickets...and on helpful surfaces he's going to be more of a threat than Freddie. I didn't see any of England's fielding but Panesar should come in for Anderson, and if Harmison really has lost it then Mahmood had better come in...not that I believe he's really up to it. The toss is vital - we have to bat first and bat well (500+) to then be able to put some pressure on them. Monty will get wickets with slip, silly point and short leg, especially in the 4th innings.

I hear Andy Robinson is being forced out today as England's rugby coach. He hasn't done well but I would never change the coach this close to the world cup - I feel sorry for whoever comes in with no time to change things. If it's Martin Johnson, then I hope he has learnt from Clive Woodward and does the same, but he has less talented players at his disposal. I'm not sure if it's really a role that Johnson should play given how recently he retired....it could be a bit like Hoddle managing England at football with so little experience (not to mention Keegan) - both with poor results.

Breaking news: Michelle is next to me in the internet cafe so she may just leave a post!

Next stop Bangkok and then Bali...

We've been in Sihanoukville for the last 2 days enjoying the beach and then sun when it's been out (it rained yesterday morning). It's great here but we have to get back to Bangkok here for our flight to Bali tomorrow evening. That involves a boat trip to the Thai border and then a bus to Bangkok and an arrival time of around midnight....the plane goes at 7pm the next day.

In Kampot we had some interesting experiences...we went on a day trip up to see one of the old colonial towns that is now a ruin on the top of a mountain. The views were really incredible but it took 90 minutes to get up there and 90 to come down again. No problem on a normal road but when you are sitting 10 in the back of a truck and the "road" is impassable by western standards it gets pretty difficult! We're grown accustomed to "numb bum" but now we're getting over "bruised bum"!!

So being thrown all over the place we also had our guide shouting in Franglais "Attention! Spikey one!" which meant that a thorny plant was overhanging and we all had to duck. I managed to get hit by one which drew some blood just above my hairline which had some of our fellow passengers concerned...but not as concerned as when a spider dropped from one of the overhanging branches down a French girls top - she screamed and screamed - it was very funny!

Having enjoyed the views we got ready for the trip back down and it was all going ok (although certainly not smoothly), until it poured with rain - there is no cover in the back of these trucks. Michelle and I just got soaked - all the others had towels or coats of some sort to cover them but we didn't have anything! Having recovered from that it then rained hard again further down!

Still, an interesting day! We then got the share taxi to Sihanoukville from Kampot where we played "how many Cambodian's can you fit in a car". We had been warned so we bought three tickets instead of two so that we had the comfort of just three in the back seat. In the front there were two per seat - apparently Cambodains think it's normal to fit 8 in a car - 4 in the front and 4 in the back!! The trip was less than 2 hours so not too bad.

Now we've got our fingers crossed that the boat trip isn't too choppy as we have heard they use river boats for trips down the coast line...and of course that England take more wickets in the Ashes! I can't believe they picked Giles over Monty but there we go...with Harmison seemingly out of sorts and Anderson not quite there yet I think Flintoff now has to take 5 for in both innings and Hoggie 3 for us to have any chance of taking 10 wickets. I hope I'm proved wrong!

I caught the last 50 mins of the England v SA rugby game...please come from depth at pace England...1st phase or 20th phase!

Off to wake up Michelle now and get the boat...

Travelling etiquette

It's not only the London tubes and buses that this happens - it's on the other side of the world too... When travelling there seems to be a few different types of people:

1. The person who never uses more than their space, and always sits by the window if that seat is empty (rather than the aisle).
2. The person who puts their bag on the seat next to them when the bus/train isn't very full but as soon as there is a chance that someone may need that seat they move their bag so that the seat is available. They sit next to the window if that seat is available so that those coming down the aisle can easily take a seat without having to squeeze past.
3. The person who leaves a bag on the seat next to them to try and stop anyone else sitting there. This type of person is all the more annoying if they listen to music on headphones and close their eyes so that the only way they notice that you need the chair where their bag is if you physically tap them to get their attention.
4. The person who always sits on the aisle seat so as to make it awkward for anyone to sit next to them as they have to push past them to get to their seat. Note that if you try to push past this type of person to sit down when there is a pair of seats available somewhere else, this person will have been montitoring seating carefully and will tell you to go and sit on the spare pair of seats rather than disturbing them. (I tend to tell them I'd like the particular seat next to them if they try that, it annoys me so much!)
5. 3 and 4 together, and when you signal that you need the seat next to them they take an eternity to move their bag and allow you to sit, huffing and puffing as they do it.

We're all human - it's not as if you can catch some terminal disease from just sitting next to someone or possibly even - god forbid - brushing lightly against them!!

Michelle and I are both type 2. If you are a 3, 4 or a 5 then take a long hard look in the mirror!!

Sport

Sorry for those that dón't like sport...a quick comment on the cricket and rugby. I saw the last 30 mins of the Argentina game and it seemed like England we're on top...don't know if that was representative of the whole game but if it was then we shouldn't panic - even great sides lose occasionally (the All Blacks in the semis of the world cup for example). But all these losses in a row seems to be down to a lack of consistency in selection...we need 22 world class players but not 30+ - I'm not sure how many players Robinson has used but it's far too many, injuries or no injouries. I'm surprised Moody can't get in the team, and also that Lund can't get on the bench at least. And he's got to get the scrum half position sorted. I haven't seen much premiership rugby in the last year but every time I see Ryan Lamb play he seems superb...is Flood really better than him?

And on the cricket...defensive it might be but 2 spinners is the way to go I think given the poor medium pace options...(yes Taff, I agree with your email). I'm a bit worried about Cook...I hope he proves me wrong but his good start to test cricket has been peppered with dropped chances by the opposition - and that was against the weak test sides. I hope he proves to be an amazing success though...Monty will be our match winner - he needs to bowl like Warne did for them last year if we're going to have much of a hope...

Off to Kampot

Still on a very slow machine so no images...but still loving Cambodia - it would be even better if it wasn't for the odd over persistent tuk tuk driver though!!

We've been to the genocide museum and the killing fields today...truly haunting. And we're off to Kampot tomorrow...

Not a lot else to say for now!

Last couple of days...

Still struggling with imgaes but we've certainly got some amazing ones in the last couple of days. Our first day here we explored until we went to Angkor Wat at sunset...it was a great site (even, I say that having thought the guidebooks must be going over the top). We were back there by 5:30am the following day to see the sunrise over it - it made for great viewing even if it did feel like we were adding to a rediculous tourist stampede. The Japanese were the funniest...they would set up all their cameras to take the "money shot"as the sun rose over the wat, and then someone would shout that they had the perfect spot so they'd all go running over there. One time the perfect spot was were Michelle was so she then was fearful of moving incase she got in a photo accidentally!

We spent the day being driven by our faithful Tuk Tuk driver, Hinda, from temple to temple and getting some amazing photos...i'll put a couple up when I find a good internet cafe. We had some great fun with some of the kids offering us things to buy but it was also heart wrenching when you had to say no. There was one poor girl who saw me and made me promise to buy a drink from her, but when I went back I couldn't see her. Just when I had bought from her friend, she returned and looked totally crestfallen that I hadn't bought from her...."but you promised". It was awful but she smiled as we left as everyone does here - it's incredibly friendly it seems to me.

The kids are very persuasive in their attempts to get you to buy...when I say that I don't want to buy anything they say "you want nothing? Nothing costs 10 dollars - this book costs only 3!". When I say my name is Ed they point at their head and laugh at my rediculous name of "Head"! And when you say you come from London they say "luverly jubberly" and "top banana"!! Needless to say we've ended up with a couple of recorders, a T-shirt each, a bracelet and a load of postcards we didn't really need just to put them out of their misery...

Today we took a boat and saw the floating village - it was incredible to see the people living like that...they mah live in floating houses but the vast majority had TV cables which I found amusing. We then went on to the Land Mines Museum where we were taken around by a land mines victim who explained the many different types and talked about how he lost his leg to a mine. We were reading about the others that live and work there when one girl came up on a wheelchair and introduced herself - we we're reading about her! She had lost both legs to landmines and her family had to sell land they couldn't afford to lose to get her medical treatment....in the end her family grew to dsipise her because of this and she was forced out of the family home. She made it to the Land Mine Museum and she certainly seemed happy treating us to the beaming smile that all Cambodians seem to produce all the time.

As you can tell I'm loving Cambodia...Michelle is too I think but I'm not sure when her next post will be so you'll have to wait to hear from her direct....

Tomorrow we have a 6am start to get the boat to Battangong (I think?) which is described as the most picturesque boat trip in the country. We've seen some great views already so really looking forward to it. As you can imagine, Michelle loves the early starts...

Cambodia

We're now in Siem Reap after 2 days of travelling non stop from Phuket. We were told that the road from the border was dodgy so we paid what was an extortionate price for travel to Siem Reap in a taxi but it turned out to be a journey that took over 3 hours in a taxi...the poor guys we spoke to who took the bus must have taken 9 or more...the state of the road wasn't exactly UK standard!

We have an image of loads of piglets being transported on the back of a bike that Michelle took...but I'll upload it another time as it takes an eternity on the internet here...

So far I've only succumbed to one cure little kid asking us to buy things but it's very difficult!

Off to the temple now...

Nearing sunset at Kata in Phuket

Just one of many experiments with my camera - just be glad that I don't post them all up!

Drinking in Phuket

A quick image of the Michelle and the very friendly woman who served us lots of beers so that we woke up with sore heads! Well...we had several before we got there too...

Spraggy has moved to Houston with work

For those of you that know him Spraggy has asked me to post the following message! This of course assumes that people that know him are reading this blog if it's to be of any use...and I'm hoping that you see a picture of him as all I'm seeing here is a black box...

"Spraggy has moved to Texas, for more details, ask someone like Steve or Austin."

Quick update

Not able to do pics from this machine so just a quick update...we travelled for 2 days with an overnight in Hat Yai toi get to Phuket....it's much like we thought except that there are less clubs and more of the elder generation.

We spent yesterday on the beach and then had a bit too much to drink so we're both feeling a little worse for wear today. The plan, if we can arrange the transport to get there, is to go to Cambodia tomorrow (well start tomorrow - it will take 2 days to get there) and spend 10 days there before we come back to Bangkok to get the flight to Bali. We hadn't planned that but it seemed like a good idea....

Off to buy a big bottle of water now!

Rollercoaster

We went to Cosmos indoor adventure park last night in the middle of a shopping maul in Kuala Lumpur. The problem is that I hate any ride that makes me feel sick/dizzy etc! Michelle's argument is that it's no fun going on rides by herself so I decided to put my fears to one side and go on the roller coaster with her so that she could enjoy herself. I hated every minute as this photo will probably show - I had my eyes shut for nearly all of it (this is a photo of a photo so sorry if it's poor quality - I had to get evidence of my last ever rollercoaster ride in my life!).

As we got off I was quite proud of myself going through all that so that my wife could enjoy herself...but when I asked if she'd enjoyed it she said no!!!

The other photo is on the kids train that goes around the park...much more my cup of tea.

KL Tower

We decided that it would be good for our hangovers to go up KL Tower! The viewing area is about over 250m up I think...

Wine

We finally found a decent priced bottle of wine as Michelle's birthday treat... but of course we couldn't have just the one so had another and a bit more after that and both woke up with hangovers today...

The Zoo

Yesterday we went off to the zoo...here's a few pics. I guess that animals look the same wherever you are in the world, but this zoo did allow you to get very close to some of the animals...

Kuala Lumpur

We're now enjoying ourselves in Kuala Lumpur, although we've quickly worked out that drinking isn't an option really given the price of alcohol. It's very western and but for that I'm really enjoying it...I think Michelle is too but we walked for miles today and so she is having to sleep now to recover!!

Please excuse the attempt an arty photo through a water feature at the highest building here...we haven't actually been up the towers yet but I'm sure we'll venture up one of the skyscrapers over the next few days.

I have already located the sports cafe for England v NZ rugby on Sunday - it's televised here at 11:30 at night...I don't think we have much hope but supporting any team isn't about supporting them only when you think they are going to win!

We're in a great little place called Pontok Lodge (I think) in an area called the Golden Triangle. Basically round here there are bars and restaurants everywhere and it's all pricey. We have a nice clean room for a decent price though, and the internet connection is two steps from our bedroom door, so when Michelle wakes up she has no excuse not to leave a post...

Monty

We went for a meal and drinks last night - our first in Kuala Lumpur - and ran into Monty Panesar at the Beach Club. I wasn't sure if it was him at first so spent 15 minutes trying to work out if it was or wasn't and eventually went to say hello. The conversation was a little bit of a let down and went something like this:

Ed: Excuse me (always polite!), this will be really embarrassing if you aren't, but are you Monty Panesar?

Monty: I'd rather not say.

Ed: So you are then! I've been wondering if it's you for about 15 minutes. Would you mind if I had a photo taken with you?

Monty: I don't think so, sorry mate. I'm trying not to draw attention to myself. Where are you from?

Ed: London. Fair enough then - enjoy your night.

Why didn't I at least say good luck in the Ashes?!? Michelle thinks I was a little star struck! Playing for England obviously brings in the pounds...when we got out bill we found that beers were over 4 quid each at that club...

Batik

There are some distinct advantages to going places in low season. This guy is called Ayar (I think) - whatever it was means Chicken in Malay. He's one of their premier batik artists and he gave us a 75 minute private demonstration of the process while he created us a personal piece of batik to take away.

He also gave us a small wedding present and I bought a shirt off him too...a little big but it seems here that I am a "fat man"! We were in the shops the other day and it turns out that clothes marketed to men with a waist my size are marked very bluntly as "for fat men". I will try and get a pic to prove this if I find more when I have my camera. The scales at our latest place in Kuala Lumpur say that I am a slimline 15 stone but all that means is that the scales are definitely dodgy - Michelle is a big fan of them!

After we'd had this personal batik lesson we went swimming only for Michelle to get bitten by a jellyfish. She's ok though...I'll let her update you when she leaves a post. It was clearly a bit scary for her when it happened but having found out that there aren't poisonous jellyfish there, she was able to relax and allow the local cures to soothe the swelling and marks. Within 24 hours she was 100% recovered for our trip to Kuala Lumpur.