Sunday 1 December Siem Reap
Still in Battambang for the morning so early start for a bike ride.
20km bike ride taking in sticky rice making, rice wine and spirit making, banana sweet making, snake wine making, rice paper making and a stop for coconut water and fruit. Quite the foodie tour really!
Ok when we started at 8am but loads hotter when we finished at 11am!!
Back into the bus at lunchtime for our journey to Siem Reap. A mere three hours!
...five hours later... Lots of roadworks - looks like they've decided to resurface/remake the whole of the road system at once!
Out for a walk round and meal in the evening. Had a 'Templed Out' cocktail in anticipation for tomorrow!!
Monday 2 December Siem Reap / Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat temple complex. Over 160 sq km of ruins.
First stop was to have pictures taken for the passes - to ensure that they're not handed on to other people I suppose.
Saw 3 out of 100s. Fabulous!
Our group - without PK/Piquet/PeeKay our leader. He was taking the photo but another temple photographer took a photo over his shoulder and appeared 5 minutes later with copies to sell to us. So we bought them lol.
A long hot day but so worth it to tick a bucket list item!!
In the evening we were so tired that we only managed to walk to a restaurant on the corner about 100 yards away from the hotel - where we had the most excellent meal of chicken Amok (me) and red snapper (Mike).
Tuesday 3 December Siem Reap / Angkor Wat
Another early morning - very early at 5am! - to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat.
Got in place - along with hordes of others and waited. For not much really - wasn't a good sunrise! But still good fun.
And the view from the other angle!!
Climb up Angkor Wat.
Scary descent - so high and steep! Spent so long at the top psyching myself up to be able to reach out to the rail to start going down that the rest of the group had begun to think that they might have to come and rescue me!
Then off to the Ta Prohm temple used in the Tomb Raiders film.
Our group tour leader.
Banteay Sri temple.
Wednesday 4 December Bangkok
Ten hours of travelling turned into 11 hours with long queues at the Thailand border then huge traffic jams coming into Bangkok.
Beautiful sunset but stuck in a traffic jam so we missed it.
I've now had a massage in all four countries. In order of preference:
First - Vietnam - on the boat in Halong Bay. Little tiny slip of a girl did a great massage.
Second - Cambodia - in the hotel in Siem Reap - would have been top ranked but just a little too firm in places. Great muscle massage but had to tiptoe for the couple of hours it took for my calves to recover.
Third - Laos - somewhere near the hotel. Some of the others had been in the morning and said it was good. Mike and I went later. I had the oil massage and he had the typical Laos pummel thing. Quite funny as I was being oiled and massaged and I could hear him being slapped and thumped. He didn't have any others lol. This was the only massage I nearly fell asleep in - still very good despite the ranking.
Last - Thailand - set off to go to the one others had used but it was shut so I went further along the road. Nice place - but posh, had to choose my aromatherapy smell and had a foot soak before I started. It was slightly more western in that it had one of those holes on the bed where you put your head in to inhale the oils underneath. Trouble was that one of my nostrils bunged up so it wasn't quite the relaxing experience it should have been. Breathing through one nostril was not calming!
Meal out in the evening. Went to the same restaurant that Ning had taken us to on our first evening. It seemed fitting to end there and put a final full stop on our grand circular tour!
The six of us who had travelled the whole circuit from start to finish posed for pictures to send to Ning who was still watching our travels through facebook.
Then a final drink for us all and a Guinness for Dan in the Irish bar round the corner from our hotel.
Lots of goodbyes as people were leaving at different times.
Thursday 5 December Bangkok - end of tour
A leisurely get up with no alarm set!!
Two pools at this hotel - one by the side of the canal and one on the rooftop.
We decided to take the free hotel minibus shuttle to the MBK centre about 6 km away. A huge shopping centre famous for its indoor, air conditioned 'market' with cheap prices.
We went, we saw, we decided it wasn't for us so we set off walking back towards the hotel as we'd planned.
A great leisurely walk and more of the tangled wires!
We stopped off for cake and a cold hot chocolate at a quirky little cafe en route
We went to look at the temples in the Wat Sa Bua and after leaving a donation a lovely lady gave us incense sticks and small bunches of orchids.
She told us with gestures, where to leave them and what to do. Then she took my phone and positioned us in three or four places to take photos of us, checking that they were all to her liking. So lovely!
So we sent more get well wishes for Carol as we did our offerings.
We also stopped to look at the amazing Loha Prasat Buddhist temple in the Ratchanaddaram complex. Known as the iron castle with its 37 spires (representing stages to nirvana or something!) Think it's the only one in the world - it was based on a Sri Lankan model.
We heard live music in an exhibition centre as we walked past so we peeped in and we were ushered in to a local band concert complete with singer. They were very good and we were the only westerners there apart from one other man who nodded to us as we went out.
So many people all around were wearing yellow so we asked why! It was in celebration of the king's birthday. He (and his father before him) was born on a Monday. Each day is assigned a colour and Monday is yellow. Even the trees got yellow flowers!
Lovely lunch at the side of the (slightly whiffy!) canal near the hotel.
We went to to the rooftop pool to see the sunset but it was setting between a load of buildings and aerials so it wasn't the most spectacular!
Saw Helen about 4 times through the evening - they had arrived from Seam Reap two hours earlier than we had the previous day so they weren't so frazzled. Must have been fewer people going through immigration control - or more people (more than one!!) working there to shorten the queue.
Out for a last short wander and a meal in the evening. Mike asked if there was wifi. The woman nodded sagely and came back with a large glass of white wine. Rude to refuse so I drank it - and we never found out about the wifi!
Friday 6 December our last day in Bangkok
Our last walk round Bangkok. We went down towards the Grand Palace to look at an exhibition which we'd missed last time.
Of course that was over a month ago so it had been replaced by a whole new load of tents and stalls on the royal field celebrating the king's birthday. Lots of plants and flowers being put into displays.
We found out that his birthday on 5 December was a holiday followed by Father's Day on 6 December. This had been decreed by the king - and if he says so - then it is so! And then the weekend - this meant a four day holiday for lots of people so they were very excited.
For us it meant lots of roads closed for various celebrations so we had to leave nearly 5 hours early for the hour long drive to get to the airport - or risk being caught up in all the travel chaos that was about to start!
The airport display was very impressive.
So after 22 hours we arrived home. Very tired and travel weary but very pleased with ourselves that we'd managed to keep up with the (sometimes quite gruelling and demanding, often early!) pace over the last five weeks.
We've walked miles - mostly literally but sometimes figuratively when we'd been travelling for long periods on bumpy roads and the Fitbit had recorded each pot hole as a step. I did 12000 steps like that one day - it was a BAD road!
We've looked on in awe at amazing places that were so gob smackingly beautiful that they didn't seem real. We've cried at people, places and situations that were all too real, too awful to comprehend and too recent. We've giggled and grumbled and chatted and shared food and stories for hours on long bus rides with the rest of the groups. We've ticked items off the bucket list.
We've had a ball!
Some statistics:
4 countries circumnavigated in just under 5 weeks
16 different hotels and homestays
2 internal flights
2 overnight sleeper trains
Travelled by plane, train, private minibus, public bus, boat, motorbike, pushbike, flat bottomed canoe, flatbed railway, tuk-tuk,
3630 miles (5850 km) travelled
Sooo.... time for a rest and catch up with the family but I'm sure that we (well me!) will soon be saying - where to next??!..
Still in Battambang for the morning so early start for a bike ride.
20km bike ride taking in sticky rice making, rice wine and spirit making, banana sweet making, snake wine making, rice paper making and a stop for coconut water and fruit. Quite the foodie tour really!
Ok when we started at 8am but loads hotter when we finished at 11am!!
Back into the bus at lunchtime for our journey to Siem Reap. A mere three hours!
...five hours later... Lots of roadworks - looks like they've decided to resurface/remake the whole of the road system at once!
Out for a walk round and meal in the evening. Had a 'Templed Out' cocktail in anticipation for tomorrow!!
All in all another good day. Max is recovering well after his trip to hospital for dehydration and Mike's big bite on his shoulder has gone down. Just as well he was taking malaria tablets.
Most people in the group have been bitten. Mike has had some good ones mostly on his legs. I've had a couple of itchy pimples - nothing major but there's still time yet!
Monday 2 December Siem Reap / Angkor Wat
Angkor Wat temple complex. Over 160 sq km of ruins.
First stop was to have pictures taken for the passes - to ensure that they're not handed on to other people I suppose.
Saw 3 out of 100s. Fabulous!
Our group - without PK/Piquet/PeeKay our leader. He was taking the photo but another temple photographer took a photo over his shoulder and appeared 5 minutes later with copies to sell to us. So we bought them lol.
A long hot day but so worth it to tick a bucket list item!!
In the evening we were so tired that we only managed to walk to a restaurant on the corner about 100 yards away from the hotel - where we had the most excellent meal of chicken Amok (me) and red snapper (Mike).
Tuesday 3 December Siem Reap / Angkor Wat
Another early morning - very early at 5am! - to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat.
Got in place - along with hordes of others and waited. For not much really - wasn't a good sunrise! But still good fun.
Scary descent - so high and steep! Spent so long at the top psyching myself up to be able to reach out to the rail to start going down that the rest of the group had begun to think that they might have to come and rescue me!
Then off to the Ta Prohm temple used in the Tomb Raiders film.
Wednesday 4 December Bangkok
Ten hours of travelling turned into 11 hours with long queues at the Thailand border then huge traffic jams coming into Bangkok.
Beautiful sunset but stuck in a traffic jam so we missed it.
I've now had a massage in all four countries. In order of preference:
First - Vietnam - on the boat in Halong Bay. Little tiny slip of a girl did a great massage.
Second - Cambodia - in the hotel in Siem Reap - would have been top ranked but just a little too firm in places. Great muscle massage but had to tiptoe for the couple of hours it took for my calves to recover.
Third - Laos - somewhere near the hotel. Some of the others had been in the morning and said it was good. Mike and I went later. I had the oil massage and he had the typical Laos pummel thing. Quite funny as I was being oiled and massaged and I could hear him being slapped and thumped. He didn't have any others lol. This was the only massage I nearly fell asleep in - still very good despite the ranking.
Last - Thailand - set off to go to the one others had used but it was shut so I went further along the road. Nice place - but posh, had to choose my aromatherapy smell and had a foot soak before I started. It was slightly more western in that it had one of those holes on the bed where you put your head in to inhale the oils underneath. Trouble was that one of my nostrils bunged up so it wasn't quite the relaxing experience it should have been. Breathing through one nostril was not calming!
Meal out in the evening. Went to the same restaurant that Ning had taken us to on our first evening. It seemed fitting to end there and put a final full stop on our grand circular tour!
The six of us who had travelled the whole circuit from start to finish posed for pictures to send to Ning who was still watching our travels through facebook.
Then a final drink for us all and a Guinness for Dan in the Irish bar round the corner from our hotel.
Lots of goodbyes as people were leaving at different times.
Thursday 5 December Bangkok - end of tour
A leisurely get up with no alarm set!!
Two pools at this hotel - one by the side of the canal and one on the rooftop.
We decided to take the free hotel minibus shuttle to the MBK centre about 6 km away. A huge shopping centre famous for its indoor, air conditioned 'market' with cheap prices.
We went, we saw, we decided it wasn't for us so we set off walking back towards the hotel as we'd planned.
A great leisurely walk and more of the tangled wires!
We stopped off for cake and a cold hot chocolate at a quirky little cafe en route
We went to look at the temples in the Wat Sa Bua and after leaving a donation a lovely lady gave us incense sticks and small bunches of orchids.
She told us with gestures, where to leave them and what to do. Then she took my phone and positioned us in three or four places to take photos of us, checking that they were all to her liking. So lovely!
So we sent more get well wishes for Carol as we did our offerings.
We also stopped to look at the amazing Loha Prasat Buddhist temple in the Ratchanaddaram complex. Known as the iron castle with its 37 spires (representing stages to nirvana or something!) Think it's the only one in the world - it was based on a Sri Lankan model.
We heard live music in an exhibition centre as we walked past so we peeped in and we were ushered in to a local band concert complete with singer. They were very good and we were the only westerners there apart from one other man who nodded to us as we went out.
So many people all around were wearing yellow so we asked why! It was in celebration of the king's birthday. He (and his father before him) was born on a Monday. Each day is assigned a colour and Monday is yellow. Even the trees got yellow flowers!
Lovely lunch at the side of the (slightly whiffy!) canal near the hotel.
We went to to the rooftop pool to see the sunset but it was setting between a load of buildings and aerials so it wasn't the most spectacular!
Saw Helen about 4 times through the evening - they had arrived from Seam Reap two hours earlier than we had the previous day so they weren't so frazzled. Must have been fewer people going through immigration control - or more people (more than one!!) working there to shorten the queue.
Out for a last short wander and a meal in the evening. Mike asked if there was wifi. The woman nodded sagely and came back with a large glass of white wine. Rude to refuse so I drank it - and we never found out about the wifi!
Friday 6 December our last day in Bangkok
Our last walk round Bangkok. We went down towards the Grand Palace to look at an exhibition which we'd missed last time.
Of course that was over a month ago so it had been replaced by a whole new load of tents and stalls on the royal field celebrating the king's birthday. Lots of plants and flowers being put into displays.
We found out that his birthday on 5 December was a holiday followed by Father's Day on 6 December. This had been decreed by the king - and if he says so - then it is so! And then the weekend - this meant a four day holiday for lots of people so they were very excited.
For us it meant lots of roads closed for various celebrations so we had to leave nearly 5 hours early for the hour long drive to get to the airport - or risk being caught up in all the travel chaos that was about to start!
The airport display was very impressive.
So after 22 hours we arrived home. Very tired and travel weary but very pleased with ourselves that we'd managed to keep up with the (sometimes quite gruelling and demanding, often early!) pace over the last five weeks.
We've walked miles - mostly literally but sometimes figuratively when we'd been travelling for long periods on bumpy roads and the Fitbit had recorded each pot hole as a step. I did 12000 steps like that one day - it was a BAD road!
We've looked on in awe at amazing places that were so gob smackingly beautiful that they didn't seem real. We've cried at people, places and situations that were all too real, too awful to comprehend and too recent. We've giggled and grumbled and chatted and shared food and stories for hours on long bus rides with the rest of the groups. We've ticked items off the bucket list.
We've had a ball!
Some statistics:
4 countries circumnavigated in just under 5 weeks
16 different hotels and homestays
2 internal flights
2 overnight sleeper trains
Travelled by plane, train, private minibus, public bus, boat, motorbike, pushbike, flat bottomed canoe, flatbed railway, tuk-tuk,
3630 miles (5850 km) travelled
Sooo.... time for a rest and catch up with the family but I'm sure that we (well me!) will soon be saying - where to next??!..
