From the sublime to the shit in 24 hours...

Today would be the last day of our three day Angkor Wat experience and in a way, despite being by far the shortest trip, was in some respects the best. For this day we would be getting picked up at around 5am, meaning getting up ridiculously early. Getting into the tuk-tuk in the dark you could almost be back at home on a dark winters morning, on our way to work. Just without the tuk-tuks, although southsea is definitely missing them.

Arriving at Angkor wat we knew immediately that we were vastly under prepared. Surrounding by people with tripods, telephonic lenses and torches the sight of the two of us in vests and flip flops must have seemed a tad strange, if not expected...

As we walked over the large moat towards the temple entrance you began to get a sense of just how popular and busy this sacred place can get. Here, at five in the morning, stood literally hundreds of people all gathered around the pond adjacent to the temple jostling to take their perfect shot of this impressive sight. Thing is, much like any other arresting tourist sight, people take so long jockeying for that perfect snap that they miss the whole point of the experience. At one point a german woman, with typical german chivalry, stood about a centimetre away from our ears whilst she snapped away on a contraption that if pointed at the moon above us would possibly have seen Neil Armstrong's footprint.

In the end the wait was worth it as we were presented with a beautiful red sky indented by the silhouette of Angkor wat in front. We hung around for a while, trying to take it all in before heading back in the tuk-tuk to catch an hours sleep before our next adventure of the day, a cambodian cooking class!

Upon arriving, the pupils were split into three groups of five and told to follow our teacher into the adjacent Market to buy the produce for the days lesson. I picked fresh spring rolls (comprising rice paper, lettuce, snake beans, sweet basil, cucumber, carrots, beansprouts and prawns) and chicken amok (amok paste, carrots, onions, stock and coconut milk). Shell picked the deep fried pork spring rolls (that's her Scottish half) and Khmer curry. We had an awesome day here, the teacher was great and the choice of things to learn to cook was extraordinary. Unlike the cooking 'class' that we attended in bali this was a full on experience, really helping you to memorise these dishes for future use. Both shell and I were in our element and after two and a half months on the road was a welcome change to being cooked for, having the ability to be fully self-sufficient is something I don't ever want to take for granted...

After sitting down and both trying and failing to eat through the mountain of food in front of us we were on our way to sort our tickets for our mammoth journey north to Laos in the morning. We got a number of quotes from a fair few travel agents and in the end plumped for the most expensive as it was, apparently, both a direct bus and also VIP, meaning that we were 100% certain to at least have the obligatory air conditioning. Oh how wrong we would be.

Back at the hotel we spent the afternoon relaxing in our room as we had had a maximum of three hours sleep for the past few nights. During this time we found accommodation in pakse and, foolishly in hindsight, paid the total before we set off. I don't quite know why we did this, maybe due to it being a strange new country?

That night we only had a small bite in town before saying our last proper goodbyes to Cambodia before heading into Laos. Although we have only been here for 7 days, I don't think I have been to a place which dishes out the beautiful and the blatantly messed up in such equal quantities.

After only another three or four hours sleep we were up at 4am once again in preparation to be picked up at 5am. After waiting for an hour we were suddenly told to get into a big mercedes which then proceeded to take us all of twenty metres down the road, stopping next to a decrepit old bus and hauling our bags onboard. We thought this was quite normal, apart from the mercedes bit, as we have boarded other buses like this which have then taken us to another bigger bus, plus we had also paid extra money for a VIP bus! After being driven around siem reap by cambodia's answer to the chuckle brothers for an hour we were then on our way, without any sign of a change in bus.

After around three hours the lack of any a/c started to become a problem. Everyone on there, mainly brit's and a smattering of French, were driven insane both by the heat and also the idiot driver's use of the horn. It was as loud as one of those they use to start a race sometimes, in fact it was one of those! He also insisted on travelling the whole way, nine hours in the end, with door wide open! All so he could smoke, and throw foreigners off the bus when he wanted, probably.

Anyway, after passing a town called kampang cham which we thought was to be our place to change busses, we started to feel the opening pangs of anger. Eventually we stopped, nine hours later at a place called memot where were told to 'get off', in those words. He also said we would be changing buses although nothing 'resembling' a bus was anywhere to be found. After fifteen minutes or so an even smaller vehicle arrived (think people carrier) and started, no jokes here, to tie our luggage onto the back with small pieces of rope. To top our joy off the two guys who were given the task of taking us onwards looked about as suspicious as a couple of Khmer rouge soldiers left over to make westerners lives as miserable as possible. After remonstrating, quite loudly, with the first driver, I was from that point on, in their eyes anyway, group spokesman. As we set off it became completely apparent that these jokers were having the time of their lives transporting this car full of cattle, sorry tourists, on into Laos. Unfortunately for us they insisted on stopping every hour, for no apparent reason. In the end it became clear that they were taking their time for a more sinister reason. We all knew that the border closes at 5pm and although leaving at 5.30am had taken every opportunity to hold up our journey to make sure that when we got to stung treng, the closest town to the border, we would either have to stay in one of their hotels and leave the next day or, as on our case, kick up a massive fuss so that they make a couple of corrupt phone calls to get us over the border after hours, all with an added bribe of course. Thing is, even before I spoke to the 'border official' on the phone, passed from the bossman, another van (smaller again) had pulled up alongside. As if by magic we no longer had to stay in stung treng but could pay an extra 'charge' to the border officials and go over the border. After arriving at the border and doing the first dodgy officialities we were then told that the officials, this time on the Laos side, wanted an extra three dollars each. So after being scammed, conned and whittled down to angry westerners in an otherwise peaceful country we were then faced with the grim proposition of paying over $100 for two visa's that we knew over half of which would go in the back pocket of some official or another. Managing to organise another small bus to take us onwards into Laos we were then told that we wouldn't be going onwards to pakse and that we would have to stay in the village where we had stopped or get on a boat to go to Don Det, an island where four of the eight guys on the bus were heading. This was the last straw. I went beserk, along with a few other guys. I have not been that angry since I was an angry, naive teenager.

In the end the owner of the company, who had virtually been killed upon us learning of his position within the company, scampered away, throwing our bags off the bus in the process. This left us, along with two young American girls effectively stuck in the dark, in the middle of nowhere with no place to go. In the end we followed the other guys by paying yet more money for a boat to take us to don det, a place we could stay the night before carrying onto pakse in the morning. Although we now knew we had lost the money we paid for the hotel in pakse we managed to find a small bungalow which, for 2 pounds a night, wouldn't break the bank. Despite a couple of large cockroaches it wasn't too bad and we were thankful for a place we could finally lay our heads after a day that in anyone's eyes was sent straight from hell.

We had a good time in Cambodia but the corruption is mind-blowing, not just in our experience. If you are flying into siem reap, having a few days in Angkor before flying out again, I can think of few better places but to scratch below the surface, by travelling over land and you are faced with almost endless scams. Makes for a great experience though!

Anyway, tomorrow we go onto pakse then get straight on a night bus to take us all the way to Vientiane! A plane ride is most certainly on the horizon though.....

Much love, tommo xxxx

Night bus to Guilin...

So the day finally arrived when we would have to cross the border and make our way into the unknown void which would be mainland China. After spending a good hour standing all the way to Lo Wu, the last stop on the MTR network within Hong Kong before getting to Shenzhen, our minds started to race at the prospect of our next adventure.

After a relatively short and unintrusive Customs and immigration process we proceeded out of the labarynth of walkways and into the smog-filled train station of downtown Shenzhen. After briefly checking out where it was we had to catch the bus from later that evening, we immediately noticed just how very different things were than in Hong Kong. Even though in geographical terms we were only a few metres away from Hong Kong, culturally we could have been on another planet. For sure Hong Kong shared big similarities, even more so after the past few years of Chinese dominance, but it was the fact that we now entered somewhere where as we sat whiling away the hours we were stared at by everyone. Not only that but people would try, even though it was blatantly obvious, to slyly take photos with you in the picture. We now know how it feels to be famous. At first a novelty, after eight hours of waiting for a bus in Shenzhen, it became draining. Sat under the dank, urine scented and smog-filled afternoon sky, Bali felt a million miles away. We even had lunch that nearly rivalled the horrific bowl of gruel that we had on Gili T. After ordering something off of the menu (no English translation this time) we ended up with greasy broth soup filled with grissly pork wonton and a round of Dim Sum that, and we are both in agreement here, were filled with tripe. Mmmmm.

After a long day in Shenzhen, our bus finally docked at the perenially urine-smelly bus station, to whisk us off into the night on our bunk-bed filled bus of dreams. To be fair to them they were excellent. The blessing came with the fact that we were the first ones on, which meant that three rows of bunks for the other passengers paled into insignificance as the guy made the bottom three bunks at the back one complete bed for the two of us. As we lay there looking out of the window at the endless city scapes I couldn't help but think how we had travelled for around three hours at that point, a journey from say, London to Manchester, and the whole of that three hours was spent driving at speed through Hong Kong city like skylines. Passing through Shenzhen and Guangzhou, you really started to understand the sheer magnitude of this country. With both populations exceeding that of London and Paris, it is amazing to think that outside that of maybe, travelling businessmen, very few people have even heard of Shenzhen and to a lesser extent Guangzhou, staggering.

Anyway, onwards we went, slipping in and out of sleep but feeling appalingly indulged at such a luxorious ride, even when local Chinese passengers got on, tutted loudly at our scene of Roman luxury and hopped up onto their mobile pig troughs to be tied in for 12 hours, 1-0 us. After a great, allbeit bumpy journey, we arrived safely in Guilin, not completely lacking sleep but feeling mildly disorientated to be met by panic that we had forgot to scribble down any directions to the hostel. In any other place that scenario would be fine but we had just travelled 800 miles into the Chinese hinterland and finding a native who could speak English was proving impossible. It's not as if you could scribble something down that you could concoct out of a phrasebook, no, this would mean mild panic and somekind of plan. After an hour and a half of roaming the streets at 7am in the rain, dodging the traffic and muttering quietly to ourselves like a frenzied Rain Man, we managed to switch Shells ancient phone on, somehow get on the internet to a retrieve the phone number the hostel had sent us and ring them. After startling them with our early troubles they managed to talk to one of the taxi drivers, via Shell's phone, who thought he had just, unwittingly, landed the part in a silly Western wind-up show. If only.
After settling in the hostel, dodging the tuts and unwanted looks from an old American couple (why??) and spending the day catching up with lost food time and planning our assault on Vietnam, we got talking to a great couple called Derek and Yulia. After our time on Bali and then in the bat-cave in Hong Kong, it was great, finally to stay in a place with the opportunity to get to know some more travellers. After spending the whole night with the two of them I think we all realised that we have alot in common and have planned to meet up sometime in the not so distant future in Cambodia or Vietnam. Really good guys.

Waking the next morning and feeling rejuvanated both by a good night's sleep and better weather, we decided to head out after a good breakfast to something called the Reed Flute Cave. After paying the relatively expensive entrance fee of around a tenner each we entered the caves to be met by a spectacular array if stalagmites and stalagtites with every impressive rock formation lit up with lights, all of different colours. A large group of Chinese tourists in front of us had their obligatory tour guide so we took our time, hanging back to make the most of the entrance fee. After a while it dauned on us that as the tour group passed through they were switching off the lights, leaving us in thier darkened wake!
At the exit we had our taXi driver waiting for us, we could have caught two busses but the driver was only 20 yuan for the day (£2) so we thought it would be more comfortablke do it that way. From there we headed for Solitary Peak, one of thousands of limestone carsts that pop out of the ground (or have failed to be eroded like the land around them?, who knows?), but this one was in the middle of the city. Guilin is much smaller than some of the main big cities such Beijing or Guangzhou, in fact it is classed as no more than a large town, yet it's population exceeds that of Birmingham with around a million people! With this in mInd, when we climbed to the top of this extrenmely steep peak we were met with a great view of the city and the impressive Li River, which acts as it's main artery. In addition, after a week of mist, murk and rain, the sun had made a good appearence too, all adding to the impressive sight before us.

Upon leaving, we had to navigate the big distance back to our hostel, on the edge of town. Walking through the throngs of Chinese holidaymakers we finally made our way into the central, pedestrianised area to be met, all of a sudden, out of nowehere, by a small Chinese man who spoke perfect English. He said we was a lecturer at the local university and that he would like us to try some tea in his cousin's shop. After trying some amazing teas, some from the local Esmanthus tree, he then proceeded to walk us round to the local booking office as we had indicated that we were thinking of taking the Li river 'bamboo' cruise' at some point over the next two days. He said he would get us cheap tickets. Being typically cautious Shell was very wary about this man but I thought he was legit, even though he did try to push a couple of things our way to try and buy along the way. To be honest, it seems the Chinese way. Completely and unashamedly dominated by money.

Anyway, after not really eating that day and having already blowing all budgets on extortinate entrance fees we found a woman selling baked sweet potatoes so paid her a pound for a giant one, which we munched down, skin and all, to the horrified look of passers-by. We also, for the very first time really, had to contend with the no-holds-barred traffic rules of mainland China. It is chaos. I think we have put a video up there to show you all but traffic goes anywhere at anytime and is never stopped by the green man! In fact this just seems to be a signal to try even harder to squeeze through gaps of people! After a couple of days experience we started to treat it like walking passed a lion, walk calmly and slowly, never show any fear and never run away.

Back at the hostel that night we were booked in for the BBQ that they provide every Friday night. Waiting for it to start, we were then told that is was actually just to the two of us that had signed up for it! They said they would go ahead and cook it, I think they all wanted to cook and get drunk to be honest, but in the end we managed to recruit some Swedish guys, who although veggies, seemed up for the idea of lots of veg and well, free beer! We were then joined by a weird Swiss guy who I kept asking whether he was obssesed with the cheese or the time the most? We sat there all night, being joined by people from all over the world. At the end of the night we were joined by a massive Dutch guy who shared out some biscuits he had bought from Macau. We all sat there trying not to laugh as every ounce of saliva was drawn from our mouth, absolutely disgusting, he definitely knew about it...

The next morning we rose late, decided that today we would try and do very little as both felt extremely tired. I'm not going to sit here and moan about being tired whilst you folk are all working incredibly hard (most) but after many days of being constantly on the go, it does get quite tiresome this travelling lark. So despite a long walk into the city, dodging the traffic, smell of cooked dog (more another time) and constant stares we had a day of chilling in the hostel and putting our now vast array of photos onto Flickr.

Much love, Tommo xxxx