Big Question Marks

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Power Travel & Cambodian Kaos!

It's been a gruelling 5 days of travel, bumpy roads, and traveller's 'stomach' - but we've experienced a beautiful country with a world heritage site to boot!

We were last in Pai (northern Thailand) when we decided to do the old "Power Travel", it worked well for us in Mexico so why not. Basically it's hardcore travel till you hit the destination you want to be at, but not knowing the times of departures of any bus stations your arriving at. The upside could be that you could be waiting for an hour, the downside is that you might be sleeping over night in a bus station (only happened once in Mexico).

Luckily we didn't have to sleep in any bus stations!
From Pai we got to Chiang Mai, then South to Bangkok, there we turned our eyes East and onto the border town of Aranyaprathet.
All of that was within Thailand, a total of 18 hours on clunky busses - but the views were great.

Enter Cambodia. We had gotten a Visa through a local travel agent for slightly more than the going price ($20 USD) - Cambodia has a 'suggestive' fee for entering the borders. We were prepared for this and it all paid off in the end, after meeting some other travellers on the other side of the border - turns out we made a good decision.

Poipet is the border town in Cambodia and we were off to Siem Reap (another 6 hours), home to the famed Angkor Temples.
Now the main road between Poipet and Siem Reap is a bit like a "Mad Max" movie, it's dusty, red, barren, and full of weird driving machines. Oh yeah, and it's full of pot holes - Everywhere - for 6 hours!

By the end of our squashed bouncy journey we found a guesthouse and promptly flopped our raw tired butts into bed.

The Angkor Temples were our first thought when we woke up, and that's exactly where we went, we rented some bikes (no mopeds, boo hoo!) and before we knew it we were walking inside one of the biggest ancient temples in Cambodia; Angkor Wat.
Now this may not seem too big, but in about a 30 km (squared) area, with about 30 such massive temples and cityscapes of an ancient civilization - it's a bit to go through (we got the 3 day pass).

*Special Dayle note* Our 3 day pass paid off the first 5 minutes upon entering the park.... MONKIES!
They were everywhere, and you could go right up and stand beside them. Sure you got the odd one that would hiss and take a swipe at you, but the rest were very cute.

What's next? We'll probably check out a couple museums, the ones documenting the civil war (Pol Pot and his cronies), and the landmine museum.
It's truly an eye opening experience when you get to see a country climbing out of the rubble of war and genocide, but take it from us this country is on the up and up!

Travel safe!
-Adrian & Dayle "?"

PS. The Internet is wicked slow here so we'll update pictures and video ASAP!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope you two are feeling better. I guess all the neat things you're seeing makes it all worthwhile, though. Be careful of bats in enclosed spaces- maybe you guys should've got the rabies vaccine? Looking forward to seeing your new pics and videos!

Unknown said...

Hi guys,
Glad to hear from you. We were just starting to scratch our heads saying hmmm I wonder if they're okay...and look at that there you are! Can't wait to see your pics. Everything sounds great, keep on truckin.

Fran said...

Hi! I like your colourful commentaries, I feel like I am right in the backpack. I am glad you are enjoying yourselves, and experiencing good fortune. Stay safe, Love Mom, and guys. <3

Anonymous said...

ALERT! ALERT!

That corpse flower that smells like ass that you kept talking about before you left? Check out the story below. Apparently they're blooming early! You better get on that like stink on a monkey.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070205/sc_nm/britain_corpseflower_weather_dc_1

Travel safe, peeps.

Anonymous said...

I guess the link was too long. Here it is again, chopped up:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070205
/sc_nm/britain_corpseflower_
weather_dc_1

Anonymous said...

Hey big questionmarks,
Probably you've arrived by now in Bangkok and moving on to see the blue dramatic sea where you can lay your tired feet down in the sand and sigh.. Anyway, were still in Siem Reap and went to the impressive mine museum and felt a little touch of the war.. Tommorow we put on our travellingboots and move to Phnom Penh and then on monday to Pakse in Laos. Hope you have a great trip and we'll keep checking your adventures and feel with you guys! And remember: quate 'I'm a questionmark, figuring it all out?' end quate. Take care!
Kees & Esther (www.ontheroad.motime.com)