Hello all,
Hope everyone is OK. We are currently in Koh Samui chilling out on the beach. We had about four days in Bangkok before this which perfectly coincided with the Songkran water festival at Thai New Year - Four days of water fights and powdered clay throwing! We were soaked from the moment we stepped off the coach. It was a great laugh though. Our camera has been slowly dying a death so we decided to splash out on a new one which is waterproof. Good job too. We didn't see any trouble or indication of the rioting that had taken place the week before. To be honest, most of the locals looked to leathered to be concerned with politics. There were a few dudes driving around in red shirts looking a bit ugly and upset, but I assumed they were utd fans after the Chelsea game (well, they are the right distance away from old trafford).
Anyway we have decided to head south to the islands for a bit of relaxation and beach time. We have been on Ko Samui fro about 4 days and have done....well, bugger all apart from laze on the beach and eat lots of nice food. Just what we needed after all the Cambodian and Khao San rd madness. We have a nice little hut only the beach, 20 yards from the sea. Tomorrow we are heading to Koh Tao to try a bit of scuba diving and hopefully some fishing. After that we are going to Koh Pha Ngan for the Full Moon Party on the 28th. That leaves us with a week to get down to Singapore where we will probably find out our flight back is cancelled because of some Icelandic volcano.
love to everyone!
Pete & Urvy XX
Monday, 19 April 2010
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Angkor Wat, Wat, Wat, Wat, Wat..........
Hello all,
Hope you are all well and had a Happy Easter. We have now left the Orphanage in Phnom Penh after two weeks. Its fair to say that we could have easily stopped longer, as it was a fantastic experience for both of us, but time for this leg of our journey was against us.
In our last few days the volunteers and staff threw a Khmer New years party for the kids at the neighboring orphanage. It seams to be a great day, which hopefully raised some awareness as well as a bit of money. We handed out leaflets a few days before in the city encouraging other traveller's and holiday makers to turn up, and there was a pretty good response. The kids from the orphanage and many other children from the village played games all day and had food. By about 7 pm we were all absolutely knackered, but it was well worth it. We left then next day on Wednesday and would just like to say thanks you to Mr & Mrs Samith, the kids and everyone else at the orphanage (especially Srey Lat) for making our stay so enjoyable. Also, a big hello to all the other volunteers who were there at the same time as we made some good friends.
The next few days in Phnom Penh were in stark contrast to the first two weeks. The city has witnessed the worst of humanity and we visiting the harrowing genocide museum at the former S21 prison. Many of the people executed at the Killing fields were held here. Of the 20,000 people who went through the prison, only 7 survived. An absolutely haunting place. To follow that we also went out to visit the Killing Fields themselves at Cheung Ek where a staggering number of people from all over the Country were killed during the terrible reign of the Khmer Rouge. The bones of the departed exhumed from the mass graves are displayed on 14 levels in Stupa constructed there. A very sobering experience indeed. So after that it was time to move on......
We are currently in Siem Reap in the north of Cambodia to see the eight wonder of the world, Angkor Wat. We went this morning to captured its beauty at sunrise along with several thousand other early risers. It is mighty impressive and amazing to think of how big the Khmer empire must have been, however, we have seen that many temples now that they are starting to lose some of their magic. Maybe we should have come here first? Don't get me wrong, we did enjoy it, but I think we have both reached and breached our temple threshold now. After 6 hours of now stop ruins we called time and came back for a brew and a nap. Call us Philistines, but I don't know how anyone could handle the 3 day tour pass they sell. We saw about 6 out of about 100 temples and religious shrines, and that was plenty.
After all that, we are now officially ready for the beach. We are heading to Bangkok, only briefly (Thaksin has a lot to answer for, not just at city), before getting down to the islands in south Thailand. My T-shirt suntan is proper embarrassing so need to get that corrected quick smart. We are also hoping to do a bit of scuba diving if time permits.
Anyway, its less than 4 weeks now before we are back in blightly for a week. It better not rain.
Take care
Pete & Urvy
XXX
Hope you are all well and had a Happy Easter. We have now left the Orphanage in Phnom Penh after two weeks. Its fair to say that we could have easily stopped longer, as it was a fantastic experience for both of us, but time for this leg of our journey was against us.
In our last few days the volunteers and staff threw a Khmer New years party for the kids at the neighboring orphanage. It seams to be a great day, which hopefully raised some awareness as well as a bit of money. We handed out leaflets a few days before in the city encouraging other traveller's and holiday makers to turn up, and there was a pretty good response. The kids from the orphanage and many other children from the village played games all day and had food. By about 7 pm we were all absolutely knackered, but it was well worth it. We left then next day on Wednesday and would just like to say thanks you to Mr & Mrs Samith, the kids and everyone else at the orphanage (especially Srey Lat) for making our stay so enjoyable. Also, a big hello to all the other volunteers who were there at the same time as we made some good friends.
The next few days in Phnom Penh were in stark contrast to the first two weeks. The city has witnessed the worst of humanity and we visiting the harrowing genocide museum at the former S21 prison. Many of the people executed at the Killing fields were held here. Of the 20,000 people who went through the prison, only 7 survived. An absolutely haunting place. To follow that we also went out to visit the Killing Fields themselves at Cheung Ek where a staggering number of people from all over the Country were killed during the terrible reign of the Khmer Rouge. The bones of the departed exhumed from the mass graves are displayed on 14 levels in Stupa constructed there. A very sobering experience indeed. So after that it was time to move on......
We are currently in Siem Reap in the north of Cambodia to see the eight wonder of the world, Angkor Wat. We went this morning to captured its beauty at sunrise along with several thousand other early risers. It is mighty impressive and amazing to think of how big the Khmer empire must have been, however, we have seen that many temples now that they are starting to lose some of their magic. Maybe we should have come here first? Don't get me wrong, we did enjoy it, but I think we have both reached and breached our temple threshold now. After 6 hours of now stop ruins we called time and came back for a brew and a nap. Call us Philistines, but I don't know how anyone could handle the 3 day tour pass they sell. We saw about 6 out of about 100 temples and religious shrines, and that was plenty.
After all that, we are now officially ready for the beach. We are heading to Bangkok, only briefly (Thaksin has a lot to answer for, not just at city), before getting down to the islands in south Thailand. My T-shirt suntan is proper embarrassing so need to get that corrected quick smart. We are also hoping to do a bit of scuba diving if time permits.
Anyway, its less than 4 weeks now before we are back in blightly for a week. It better not rain.
Take care
Pete & Urvy
XXX
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